Americans Reject Chinese and US Government Cloud Video Recording

Americans overwhelmingly rejected both Chinese and US government owned cloud video recording, in Google consumer surveys run by IPVM. This is especially noteworthy as Hikvision continues its rapid, deceptive expansion to get US consumers to unknowingly put Chinese government controlled products into their homes.

In this note, we examine the survey results and the meaning for the market.

Background

Even without any government control, a majority of Americans are not ok with cloud recorded video:

See the full survey results here.

US Govt Opposition

Americans are even more opposed if the US government owns the company recording the video, with ~60% against and less than 10% for:

See the full US govt survey results here.

Note: There are no companies owned by the US government offering cloud video recording. This question was included simply to understand American perception about potential government involvement.

Chinese Govt Opposition

Americans are most opposed to the Chinese government owning companies recording the video, with ~70% opposed:

See the full Chinese govt survey results here.

Hikvision's Danger

Hikvision's Ezviz initiative means that Hikvision has direct access to see video from millions of cameras, growing every day. Worse, because Hikvision pretends that Ezviz is a US based startup in their marketing, consumers have no idea their home security video is being connected to the cloud of Chinese government owned company.

Government Danger

Both the Chinese and US government have poor track records of hacking / accessing consumer devices. These concerns continue to grow on both sides, with the Chinese government's recent anti-terrorism law forcing backdoors [link no longer available] and the US government pushing for backdoors (see Apple CEO's public letter against the FBI).

If cloud video surveillance is really going to grow, all providers, and especially those directly controlled by governments (Hikvision), are going to need to prove that they can secure and protect their customers from the intrusion of governments. Either that, or convince people that a cheap home cam is worth the tradeoff of giving the Communist party 24/7 look-in privileges.