Security News > 2023 > July > Hikvision, Nvidia named in contract for 'Uyghur detection'

Chinese video surveillance equipment maker Hikvision was reportedly paid $6 million by Beijing last year to provide technology that could identify members of the nation's Uyghur people, a Muslim ethnic majority, according to physical security monitoring org IPVM. The payment was documented in a contract between Hikvision and the Chinese government obtained by IPVM. "While the People's Republic of China has sharply restricted access to sensitive documents such as this one, this shows that persecution of Uyghur ethnic minorities is ongoing and that Hikvision, in what the authorities called its 'standard configuration,' can and does supply this human rights-abusing software," IPVM's researchers reported last week.

Hikvision earned itself a spot on the US blacklist in 2019 for allegedly being complicit in Beijing's suppression of the Uyghur population.

Nvidia was also named in this latest contract, but the accelerator maker says it hasn't sold kit to Hikvision since 2019.

The contract seen by IPVM, dated December 2022, is for the installation of 210 Hikvision cameras, drones, routers, and camera poles within three months.

The contract apparently also requires a server packing at least eight Nvidia T4 GPUs - a brand IPVM claims that Hikvision prefers.

The Register requested comment from Hikvision last week, but it had not responded at the time of writing - three business days after approach.

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https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/07/31/beijing_hikvision_nvidia_uyghur/