To safeguard National Security,U.S. Bans Chinese Telecom Equipment and Surveillance Cameras

To safeguard National Security, U.S. Bans Chinese Telecom Equipment and Surveillance Cameras

Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision, and Dahua have been formally declared as “unacceptable” national security threat by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).FCC announced that it will no longer authorize electronic equipment from the above mentioned.

As of March 12, 2021, all of these Chinese telecom and video surveillance companies were included on the Covered List.

Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, said in Friday’s order that the agency remains committed to protecting their own national security by banning untrustworthy communications equipment.

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

To comply with the ban, Hytera, Hikvision, and Dahua must document the safeguards they are implementing for government use and surveillance of critical infrastructure facilities.

The move comes more than two months after the regulator added Pacific Network Corp and China Unicom (Americas) to the Covered List.

Not only the U.S. but even the U.K., 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.