(PUBLIC) Uniview Investigated By US China Commission

A commission of senior US government officials investigated Uniview in its annual report on China's human rights situation to the President and Congress, placing prominent emphasis on its PRC police projects and Uyghur detection (see IPVM investigation). This is a risk for Uniview, which could face sanctions or other US government action.

Sanctions against Uniview have long been a subject of speculation, including by the company itself, given the substantial similarity with Dahua and Hikvision's PRC activities.

CECC Background

The Congressional-Executive China Commission (CECC) is an independent federal agency composed of US Senators, Congresswomen/Congressmen, and senior Executive Branch officials. It monitors human rights in China, and submits an annual report to the President and Congress.

Uniview Leading Concern

In the executive summary (pg 32), Uniview and sister company Breseee literally top the CECC's examples of companies "reported to be supporting the Chinese government’s data collection, surveillance, and censorship," surpassing far more notable companies like Apple, HSBC, Thermo Fisher, Dahua, Hikvision, and PayPal. This choice to put more attention-grabbing names further down indicates an outsized degree of concern with Uniview.

The CECC cites an in-depth IPVM investigation of Uniview in China: Uniview PRC China Investigation: State Surveillance, Xinjiang/Tibet, and the CCP.

Uniview, alongside Dahua and Hikvision, leads the "Technology-Enhanced Authoritarianism" section (pg 285) over selling technology that tracks protestors and ethnic/religious minorities:

"Technology-Enhanced Authoritarianism" is among the most prominent topics in Western human rights and China policy circles due to concerns technology will proliferate beyond the PRC, and contribute to the stability of authoritarian regimes. This section is likely to be widely read.

Featuring prominently in this report bodes poorly for Uniview. Uniview is not subject to the FCC/NDAA bans or sanctions despite raising similar human rights and security concerns as Dahua and Hikvision. The company has been preparing sanctions evasion strategies should this happen, but its best strategy currently is to avoid attention.

Protestor Detection - Dahua, Hikvision, Infinova

Protestor repression technology from Dahua, Hikvision, and NJ-based Infinova also feature in the report:

U.S.-sanctioned Dahua and Hikvision and New Jersey- based video surveillance manufacturer Infinova developed various ‘‘alarms’’ to help police identify and detect potential political protests;

This is based on an IPVM investigation of Dahua and Infinova: Dahua Selling Protestor / Banner Alarms, Deletes Evidence, and an IPVM/The Guardian collaboration: Hikvision Platform Set Alarms On Falun Gong, Protesters, Religion

PRC Ethnicity Tracking Technology

The report places significant emphasis on technology-powered ethnic/religious minority repression in China, particularly Uyghurs, including Dahua, Hikvision, Netposa, and Uniview's coauthorship of PRC national standards for public security including ethnicity tracking, which IPVM investigated in 2021:

In 2021, IPVM, a U.S.-based company that monitors security technology, reported that Uniview, Hikvision, Dahua, and NetPosa coordinated with PRC public security authorities to write ‘‘ethnicity tracking’’ standards—including the use of various ‘‘personal at- tributes, such as skin color’’—to facilitate the surveillance of Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other ethnic groups in China.

The report also cites IPVM's investigation of Shanghai's Uyghur and foreign journalist tracking system:

In May 2023, IPVM reported that Songjiang district in Shanghai munici- pality was designated a digitization ‘‘case study,’’ with the goal of digitally transforming Shanghai’s public security bureaus so that they are able to access a set of data modules, one of which can alert public security about foreign journalists in Shanghai who have traveled to the XUAR.

Human Rights Situation in CECC 2023 Report

The CECC published its 373-page 2023 Annual Report in May 2024, and depicts an "harsh reality" for human rights in China compared to several years ago, as the executive summary emphasizes:

PRC security industry companies are identified as contributing to this deteriorating human rights situation by creating repressive tools for PRC authorities.

Outlook

If or when the US government takes any action against Uniview remains to be seen. However, unlike in 2018 when the NDAA was passed (that did not include a relatively unknown, at that time, Uniview), Uniview is now far better known in the US and, within the US government