Huawei, Hikvision, Dahua face lawsuit for role in Uyghur biometric surveillance

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) – an international organization defending the interest of Uyghur people in and out of China – has filed a petition against a trio of Chinese technology giants namely Huawei, Hikvision and Dahua, over their alleged role in oppressing the minority Uyghur community in the Xinjiang province of China.

The suit has been filed by human rights attorney William Bourdon against the French offices of these companies.

According to a press release issued by WUC, these firms are accused of aiding the Chinese government with their technology in committing crimes against humanity, against the Uyghurs in East Turkistan.

To be specific, the companies are accused of four crimes namely genocide, human trafficking, aggravated servitude and concealment of these crimes.

Going by the release, these companies are complicit in the deployment of huge surveillance systems including AI-based live facial recognition systems used to identify persons with Uyghur background. Sometimes, those identified face persecution from the hands of Chinese law enforcement officers.

“This submission is an important reminder to all companies complicit in the government’s genocide that they bear legal responsibility,” WUC President Turgunjan Alawdun, said. He added: “We are confident that the French judiciary will take this matter seriously.”

A non-governmental organization dubbed Don’t Fund Russian Army is said to be supporting the legal challenge against these companies which it had accused in the past of using their rights-violating surveillance systems in some conflict areas around the world such as in Ukraine. There have been questions if security flaws in these surveillance systems deployed in Ukraine didn’t facilitate Russia’s attack on the country.

Before the case in Paris, the WUC had initiated legal action pushing for an investigation into allegations that cotton imported in to the UK from Xinjiang was produced using forced labour by Uyghurs.

Hikvision and Dahua have faced serve censure in different parts of the world for their role in the persecution of the Uyghur minority group in China. These two companies have been forced by pressure from such accusation to cancel some of their biometrics contracts.

Beyond contract cancellation woes, the two firms have been put on a U.S. government blacklist and barred from exhibiting their cameras at ISC events.

Hikvision, Dahua operations in Ecuador, Serbia questioned

Hikvision surveillance cameras have been sharply criticized in several countries around the world, not only because of privacy and security concerns but because of reputational issues.

In Ecuador, for instance, there have also been concerns about the dominance of surveillance technologies from Chinese companies like Hikvision and Dahua which have a strong presence in that country’s residential and government surveillance projects.

According to Dialogo Americas, such expansion of these Chinese companies into Ecuador’s security infrastructure doesn’t only put the digital sovereignty and data security of the country at risk, it also undermines human rights. Also, the report highlights issues about the opacity of the contracts awarded to these tech giants.

Meanwhile, these companies are also accused of dominating the surveillance security space in Serbia where the government is also faulted for allowing an unregulated surveillance market to thrive. Balkan Insight mentions Hikvision and Dahua as supplying equipment with features such as facial recognition and license plate reading to the country.

With the weak legal framework in the country and others in the region, experts are of the opinion that such uncontrolled surveillance systems are dangerous both from the national security and human rights perspectives.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  China  |  Dahua Technology  |  ethnicity recognition  |  facial recognition  |  HIKVISION  |  Huawei  |  human rights  |  lawsuits  |  video surveillance