Hikvision Denies Illegally Supplying US Government

Chinese surveillance camera giant Hikvision has denied it is continuing to illegally supply cameras to the US government in a rebranded or “white label” form.

The firm told the BBC it “has not, does not and will not violate the law in order to conduct its business” and has “very clear and longstanding policies in place to prevent the improper labelling of its products by anyone for any reason”.

The firm added that it has been working with the US government for years to keep its products off government supply chains – as is required by law – and to “make sure our cameras are never sold improperly”.

Hikvision was described in a leaked US government document as “partnering with Chinese intelligence entities” and “using relationships with resellers to disguise its products for sale to government suppliers”, the BBC reported.

Espionage claim

The document claims this was “creating vectors for Beijing to compromise DoD [Department of Defense] networks” and Hikvision products would probably remain in government supply chains “because of the company’s efforts to mask its exports to retain access to US and allies’ markets”.

The document claims that as of January white-labelled Hikvision products were still available to US government customers.

Last week 21-year-old National Air Guardsman Jack Teixeira was arrested for allegedly leaking a number of classified US government documents.

Separately, Axios reported that an internal review at Hikvision found its contracts with police agencies in the Xinjiang region of China were “problematic” because they included language about targeting Uyghur Muslim minorities.

‘Problematic’ operations

The company has known about the “problem” since at least 2020, according to a recording of a recent private company meeting that obtained by technology trade publication IPVM and shared with Axios.

Hikvision has previously denied being complicit in the alleged genocide of Uyghurs.

The report resulted from an internal investigation by war-crimes investigator Richard-Pierre Prosper, whom Hikvision hired in 2019 amidst increased international scrutiny of its operations in Xinjiang, Axios reported.