Hikvision video surveillance camera. Credit: Karolis Kavolelis, Shutterstock
Alarmed by reports of cyberattacks and the growing threat China poses to national security, the United States Congress passed a law in 2018 that would ban any facility operated by the U.S. government or one of its contractors from using equipment made by five state-backed Chinese technology firms: Huawei, ZTE, Dahua, Hytera and a company called Hikvision, the world’s biggest maker of security and video surveillance cameras.
According to the National Defense Authorization Act, all U.S. government facilities — including military bases — are required to rid themselves of any device made by these five firms within a year, or by August 2019. And then, a year later, by August 2020, the government said that all contractors have to rid their premises of equipment made by the five Chinese firms, and attest to that in writing, if they want to conduct business with the government.
If that wasn’t enough, in 2019, the U.S. Commerce Department added three of the firms (Huawei, Dahua an
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