Using Chinese Surveillance Companies Akin to Handling ‘Digital Asbestos,’ UK Government Adviser Warns

Hikvision headquarters in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang Province on May 22, 2019. STR/AFP via Getty Images

Allowing Chinese surveillance companies to operate in the UK is akin to installing “digital asbestos” that puts civil liberties at risk, warned the government’s Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner, Fraser Sampson, who is reviewing the country’s human rights and security issues.

Sampson said on Tuesday that allowing China’s controversial CCTV makers and operators Hikvision and Dahua to become the dominant companies in the UK surveillance sector means “almost every aspect of our lives is now under surveillance using advanced systems designed by, and purchased from, companies under the control of other governments.”

“We have a public surveillance infrastructure built on ‘digital asbestos’ requiring both considerable caution when handling the products installed by a previous generation and, as a priority, a moratorium on any further installation until we fully understand the risks we have created,” Sampson said.

He was prompted to a pen the warning letter after reading an investigation from civil liberties campaigner Big Brother Watch (pdf), which found over 60 percent of public bodies in the UK currently operate Chinese state-owned surveillance cameras, including councils, schools, universities, and hospitals.

“The people we trust—the police, fire and rescue, local authorities, and the government itself—must be able to trust their technology partners, both in terms of security and of our shared ethical and professional values,” Sampson said.

“The publicly available evidence tells me that some of these companies—notably Hikvision and Dahua—simply cannot be trusted, partly because of concerns about the role they and their technology are believed to have played in perpetuating the appalling treatment of Uyghur Muslims … but also because of those companies’ absolute refusal to engage with even the most cursory level of public accountability in response to those concerns,” he added.

A Dahua Technology thermal imaging camera is seen during a demonstration of the camera at an office in San Francisco, Calif., on April 24, 2020. Nathan Frandino/ Reuters

He said he will now commission a survey across police and local authorities to identify how many are relying on Chinese operated surveillance systems and, based on its findings, will consider amendments to the Public Procurement Bill currently before Parliament.

But he warned what “is ultimately needed” is a full inventory across the UK’s critical national infrastructure.

His letter piles more pressure on the UK government to slap a ban on the sale and operation of surveillance equipment supplied by Hikvision and Dahua, whose equipment is used by the UK government.

Hikvision, which has revenues of £7.5 billion ($9.2 billion) and Dahua, with revenues of £3 billion ($3.6 billion), are the biggest companies in the UK surveillance sector.

Yet though both companies are listed as privately owned, each have major shareholders with connections to the Chinese Communist Party.

Of the 1,300 public bodies which responded to 4,500 Freedom of Information (FoI) requests by Big Brother Watch, 800 confirmed that they did have Hikvision or Dahua cameras employed on their premises.

These included nearly three-quarters of UK regional councils, 60 percent of schools, half of NHS trusts and universities, and nearly a third of police forces.

Big Brother Watch said in a report (pdf), the UK government should insert a “serious human rights abuses” clause which allows ministers to place Hikvision, Dahua, and other technology companies that are linked to serious human rights abuses on the central debarment list.

The Epoch Times has contacted the UK’s Home Office minister responsible for national security for comment.