China is not slowing its global surveillance industry march

A new examination of China’s biometric surveillance industry worldwide describes almost unbridled growth — growth that United States tech firms are abetting.

On all fronts, China’s authoritarian government is goading its private sector, including facial recognition firms, to make sales globally even as Beijing continues to find new ways to surveil its people — especially ethnic and religious minorities.

The report, published by Top10VPN, focuses on Huawei Technologies, a telecommunications-infrastructure, consumer-electronics and surveillance force in nation after nation. But another 14 Chinese companies are mentioned as international surveillance-system purveyors.

Almost 2,000 Huawei middleboxes — firewalls, intrusion detectors, network address translators and like infrastructure — was found in 72 countries by analyzing networks, according to Top10VPN.

The equipment can make networks safer and more efficient, but they are also used for overtly and covertly repressive policies. They are secretly monitoring and blocking traffic in 18 nations, including Oman, which is blocking a LGBTQI+ site.

The Biden administration and its predecessor have imposed sanctions on China for its continued, industrialized oppression of Beijing’s Muslim Uyghur population. Most visible among the cudgels is the Entity List, a growing compilation of Chinese businesses that Washington deems as complicit in subjugation.

Perhaps as damning as any other finding, researchers say that IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Oracle and HP are still listed as partners to these companies.

And a 2020 Top10VPN report found that Amazon provided web services to the most companies on the Entity List — eight.

Google supported five and Microsoft four. Nine Chinese companies on the list have contracts with U.S. hosting firms.

In fact, according to Reuters reporting, Google’s YouTube in June removed Odysee, a channel posting testimonials from people who say family members in the Uyghurs’ home region of Xinjiang have vanished.

Article Topics

biometric monitoring  |  biometrics  |  China  |  facial recognition  |  Huawei  |  privacy  |  surveillance