British government departments were on Thursday ordered to stop installing Chinese-made surveillance cameras at “sensitive sites,” drawing a strong rebuke from one of the companies targeted.
The move comes with the government moving more forcefully against China and its companies on security grounds. Last week, it ordered a Chinese-owned firm to divest most of Newport Fab LLC, Britain’s biggest semiconductor maker.
A report by Big Brother Watch said ost public entities in the UK use security cameras made by Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co (浙江大華科技) or Hikvision Digital Technology Co (海康威視).
Photo: REUTERS
In July, a group of 67 British lawmakers urged the government to ban the sale and use of surveillance equipment made by the two companies, whose products have allegedly been implicated in rights abuses against the Uighur minority in Xinjiang.
However, the government’s new order stopped short of an outright ban on the companies. It instead discouraged the use of “visual surveillance systems” made by firms required by Chinese law to share intelligence with Beijing’s security services.
No such cameras should be connected to “core networks” at government departments, and ministries should consider replacing them rather than waiting for scheduled upgrades, it said.
Photo: REUTERS
A government review has concluded that “in light of the threat to the UK and the increasing capability and connectivity of these systems, additional controls are required,” British Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Oliver Dowden told parliament.
“Departments have therefore been instructed to cease deployment of such equipment on to sensitive sites, where it is produced by companies subject to the national intelligence law of the People’s Republic of China,” he said.
Some British ministries have already been removing Hikvision gear, after one of the firm’s cameras in June last year caught then British secretary of state for health and social care Matt Hancock kissing an aide in contravention of COVID-19 rules. He was forced to resign.
In response to Dowden’s statement, a spokesman for the company said it was “categorically false to represent Hikvision as a threat to national security.”
Hikvision “cannot transmit data from end-users to third parties,” he said. “We do not manage end-user databases, nor do we sell cloud storage in the UK.”
“We have always been fully transparent about our operations in the UK and have been engaging with the UK government to clarify misunderstandings about the company, our business, and address their concerns,” the spokesman said. “We will seek to urgently engage further with ministers to understand this decision.”
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