Matt Hancock and the Problem with China’s Surveillance Tech

Williams notes that Hikvision is a leader in cameras with artificial intelligence. This includes facial recognition, freshly calibrated to cope with Covid-19 masks, and gait recognition, identifying the unique way an individual walks. There are even cameras able to read emotions.

Hikvision has close links to the Chinese Communist Party. It is an enabler of Xi Jinping’s dystopian surveillance state and has been blacklisted by the US government for facilitating repression in Xinjiang. ‘Smart cities’ (referred to as ‘safe cities’ in China) is an umbrella term for the surveillance cameras, sensors and other ‘intelligent’ systems that will supposedly keep our future cities ticking over, while collecting a chilling amount of data in the process. Hikvision, Alibaba and Huawei are all key suppliers.

The camera capturing Hancock was made in China, but even if the Chinese intelligence services were not involved in leaking the compromising video to the press, the episode is one more indication, if one were needed, of the security risks involved in allowing an unregulated access by Chinese technology companies access unfettered and unregulated access to Western markets.

Williams concludes:

Chinese tech companies have benefitted from their government’s cyber espionage, forced technology transfer and IP theft, but western tech companies continue to be willing enablers of the surveillance state.

Another battle the West is losing is over international technical standards, which define how tech works and its interoperability. The West has allowed China almost free rein in the 200-odd global organizations and bodies which set these standards, particularly in the emerging fields of AI, 5G and the Internet of Things. Beijing even has an initiative, China Standards 2035, aiming to impose its own rules on the global system by that date. Technology is never neutral; the same tech can be purposed and repurposed in different ways and in different contexts. It can embody political, economic and wider moral and ethical values. The US Congress has been considering an algorithm accountability act, which would force companies to assess the impact of AI systems.

There is a recognition in Britain of the need to curb access by China’s big tech companies to the most sensitive segments of the British economy. The government initially set the threshold above which an overseas stake must be examined at 15 percent, but then, under industry pressure, raised the threshold to 25 percent, sharply reducing the number of deals facing scrutiny.

Williams warns that “The narrow debate over investment rules frequently ignores these wider issues and challenges.” We should worry not about the specifics of individual deals. Rather, we should be concerned with, and vigorously act to prevent, an over-dependence on China.