UK surveillance cameras regulator withdraws from industry conference over Hikvision’s involvement

Fraser Sampson, commissioner for biometrics and surveillance cameras, says Hikvision has not yet answered questions over Xinjiang
Sampson had been set to speak at the CCTV User Group’s Vision 2022 conference in April

China technology

Chad Bray

Published: 6:37pm, 22 Mar 2022

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The regulator overseeing the United Kingdom’s closed circuit television (CCTV) industry has pulled out of an influential conference over the involvement of China’s Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology.

Fraser Sampson, Britain’s commissioner for biometrics and surveillance cameras, said Hikvision had yet to answer his questions about human rights abuses in Xinjiang first put to the surveillance camera maker last year, prompting his withdrawal.

State-backed Hikvision is a prominent sponsor of CCTV User Group’s Vision 2022 conference, which is expected to take place next month in the village of Whittlebury in Northamptonshire county.

“I asked several questions of Hikvision, one being simply whether they accepted that such atrocities were taking place,” Sampson said. “They have still not answered those questions.”

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Hikvision was blacklisted by the US government in 2019 over Beijing’s treatment of Uygur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. The Hangzhou-based company generates about a quarter of its revenue overseas, with more than 1.3 million of its security cameras in use in Britain alone.

Hikvision did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The commissioner’s withdrawal from speaking at the conference was reported earlier by The Telegraph.

Sampson said he had previously advised the CCTV User Group that he would not attend the conference if Hikvision continued to refuse to answer his questions, noting that the company was a major advertiser and presenter at the conference.

“The conference organisers advised me that they had decided to withdraw Hikvision’s invitation and on that basis I agreed to attend,” he said. “When this decision was subsequently reversed, I no longer felt able to attend.”

The CCTV User Group said it was “disappointed” by Sampson’s decision and was prepared to “bend over backwards” to accommodate him. “We are also disappointed because we feel that we have been drawn into an argument between the two parties that we are not empowered to resolve,” the group said in a recent blog post on the dispute. “The CCTV User Group is a non-political organisation, it was established to provide advice to members and encourage best practice in video surveillance.”

The group noted that the UK government had not banned any Chinese company from supplying CCTV equipment and Hikvision’s equipment continues to be installed by the government and private sector in the UK.

“Banning them from attending the CCTV User Group conference would have limited impact on Hikvision either in China or the UK, but would have a disproportionate impact on the CCTV User Group,” the industry body said. “Fraser is essentially asking us to pay the price that might allow him to apply a little leverage over one company.”

In a letter to Hikvision last week, Sampson said his office had received “inconclusive correspondence” from the company and was unwilling to agree to any “preconditions” of non-disclosure.

In a March 16 letter, Justin Hollis, Hikvision’s marketing director for the UK and Ireland, said the company would be happy to meet with Sampson’s office, but requested any meeting be in private.

“If you want to have a conversation with us, we welcome it. We will be candid and factual,” Hollis said in the letter, which was released by Sampson’s office. “All we ask is that you keep any commercially sensitive information that we might share out of the media and from anti-Hikvision and anti-China platforms, though your correspondence to Hikvision was already publicised without providing a respectful amount of time to respond.”

In a separate letter on Monday, Sampson said he did not see how any of the questions he had raised “engage matters of commercial confidentiality”.

“I do however understand that you might not be free to answer them,” he wrote. “Should this situation change, I will readily meet with you once you have addressed the questions and we can then discuss our respective responsibilities and expectations in ensuring the ethical and accountable development of public space surveillance.”