The Guardian: Chinese developer of surveillance cameras Hikvision has created special software to spy on protesters

Chinese police are using Hikvision, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of surveillance cameras and other similar systems, to spy on protesters. British newspaper writes about it The Guardianwhich conducted its own investigation. The publication used data from the research company IPVM.

The Guardian writes about Hikvision’s cloud-based Infovision IoT tool, which “enables smart security decision-making” and provides services to facilitate the work of the police. In the technical documents prepared by Hikvision, there is a description of the alarms that the system reports to the police. In addition to options such as “theft”, “pornography” or “human trafficking”, there are descriptions of signals associated with protests and demonstrations. These include, among other things, “gathering a crowd to disturb the order in a public place”, “gathering a crowd to attack government agencies”, “illegal gatherings, processions, demonstrations” and even “the threat of filing a petition” and “Falun Gong” (a religious movement banned in China). , the regional branch of the sect in the Russian Federation is recognized as an extremist organization). The documents do not detail how exactly these signals work, but among the response options is a call to the police.

Hikvision declined to comment on The Guardian’s investigation. The company has previously been criticized for creating special tracking systems, including in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. In November, US authorities banned Hikvision equipment from being brought into the US and sold there. Also in November, the UK government refused from using security cameras made by Chinese companies, including Hikvision.

Late November – early December in China passed mass protests against tough anti-COVID measures. Many participants in the rallies reported that after that they received calls from the police.

Yana Rozhdestvenskaya