U.S. Bans Chinese Telecom Equipment and Surveillance Cameras Over National Security Risk

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) formally
announced it will no longer authorize electronic equipment from
Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision, and Dahua, deeming them an
“unacceptable” national security threat.

All these Chinese telecom and video surveillance companies were
previously included in the Covered List^[1]
as of March 12, 2021.

“The FCC is committed to protecting our national security by
ensuring that untrustworthy communications equipment is not
authorized for use within our borders, and we are continuing that
work here,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said^[2]
in a Friday order.

“These new rules are an important part of our ongoing actions to
protect the American people from national security threats
involving telecommunications.”

Pursuant to the ban, Hytera, Hikvision, and Dahua are required
to document the safeguards the firms are putting in place on the
sale of their devices for government use and surveillance of
critical infrastructure facilities.

The development comes over two months after the regulator
moved to add^[3]
Pacific Network Corp and China Unicom (Americas) to the Covered
List in an effort to curtail the reach of Chinese state-owned
carriers in U.S. networks.

It’s not just the U.S. The U.K., in a similar move, has banned
the installation of visual surveillance systems procured from China
on “sensitive” government sites.

“Departments have been advised that no such equipment should be
connected to departmental core networks and that they should
consider whether they should remove and replace such equipment
where it is deployed on sensitive sites rather than awaiting any
scheduled upgrades,” the government said^[4].