The world's leading surveillance camera manufacturer from China, Hikvision, is known to be supplied from two major Japanese tech companies, Sony and Sharp, despite the U.S blacklist. (Image via Asmag.com)

Sony, Sharp export component to the blacklisted Hikvision

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Business & Industry
Electronic Device
Nov 26, 2019
1377
Two major tech companies in Japan, Sony Corp and Sharp Corp, was known to have supplied materials to the Chinese video surveillance firm, Hikvision Digital Technology Co. The matter is that Hikvision is included in the “Entity List” by the United States (U.S) Department of Commerce among the other 28 Chinese firms that violated human rights in Xinjiang Province on the Uyghur Muslims group.

Quoting its brochures, Hikvision uses Sony image sensors in its 180 surveillance cameras and image sensors from Sharp are used in its two camera models.

Hikvision initially stated that its surveillance camera could detect an Uyghur Muslim. But, the advertisement was brought down when Hikvision was included in the “Entity List”. International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, having got a document from the Communist Party, revealed that the Chinese government is deploying surveillance cameras and predictive policing system in Xinjiang.

Some footage also showed that the Hikvision surveillance camera is installed in the Xinjiang detention center.

Sony and Sharp announced different comments. Sony said that it never asks the policy of its customers but certainly, Sony upholds respect toward human rights. Sharp, on the other hand, did not disclose the information of its customers.

However, Sony and Sharp are not the only Japanese firms that collaborated with blacklisted Chinese firms. Honda Motor Company collaborated with SenseTime Group Ltd for facial recognition tech. Some companies, fortunately, are aware of the human rights issue. Eiken Foundation severed collaboration with voice recognition developer Iflytek Co. after the company was listed into the “Entity List”.

Giving the comparison in numbers, the analysts pointed out that the awareness of the human rights of the Japanese companies is low, lagging 20 years behind the U.S.

Source: https://bit.ly/37BghDz

Business , Technology , Politics , Entity-List , Blacklist , U.S , Asia , Japan , China , Sony , Sharp , Hikvision , CCTV , Scandal , Export-import