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French National Police Buy 10,400 Hikvision Body Cameras
Published May 31, 2018 13:11 PM
France’s national police forces bought 10,400 Hikvision body cameras earlier this year, in a high-profile deal that’s coming into effect as the US Congress considers legislation banning Hikvision’s products from government use due to espionage and cybersecurity fears.
In this note, we share details from Hikvision's French partner Allwan Security, consider the security concerns, and examine how Hikvision's body camera expansion could impact this market segment and its most well-known provider Taser / Axon.
Concerns ****** ** ****** *****
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Deal *******
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Hikvision ******* **** ** ****, **** **********
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** ********, ** *** **** *** modified ******* *** ** **** ************ or ***** ** *********’* ***** *******, Hik-Connect, *** **** ****** ******** *** the ******** ********* ******** **** ****** firmware.
Hikvision ****** ***** ****** ********
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************* ********** ******** ** * *********** undertaking, *** ****** *** **** ****** 10 *********, ********* * *********, ********* to ** ***. *********’* *********** **** Allwan ******* *** ********** ** ******* quickly ** *** ********’* *******, ******* it *** *** ********, ** *** said. (****** ** * ****** ******* of *********, ****** *** ********* ******** from *** *******.)
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*******
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Axon / ***** ***********
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“A *********** **** *** *****”
** *** **** ***** *** ** reason *** ******’* *********** **** ********* on * ******** ****** ******** ** raise ********.
“**'* * *********** **** *** *****,” he ****. “* **** *** ********** the ***** *** ************ ******** *********.”
*** ****** ******** ******** *** *** respond ** ****’* ********* *** *******.
Comments (19)
JH
John Honovich
May 31, 2018U
Undisclosed #1
May 31, 2018As evidence, Le Fur said the modified cameras had no WiFi capabilities or links to Hikvision’s cloud service, Hik-Connect, and that Allwan replaced all the original Hikvision firmware with custom firmware.
This may be true, but they do not know what code is running in the SoC chipset itself. Granted, it is highly unlikely that Hikvision or the SoC vendor has some kind of deeply-buried trojan-horse, but it is also not at all impossible.
Additionally, it is reasonable to assume that new firmware for these will be released over time. These updates could each contain a piece of a backdoor, done in a way as to not make it obvious a backdoor was being added. This approach was used years ago in the DirectTV Black Sunday Kill, for example. Hikvision could easily pass this off as "security checks" or other necessary bits of code buried in the firmware, assuming that anyone would even be deeply examining those updates in the first place.
When you are dealing with embedded hardware like security cameras, body cameras, access control boards and so forth you are implicitly granting trust to every major entity that has a hand in the software AND the hardware.
If the French government feels they can fully and unequivocally trust Hikvision, HiSilicon (or whoever did the SoC), and the Chinese government, among others, then they should have no concerns. If they do not trust ALL of these entities fully, then custom firmware is not a solution.
Michael Gonzalez
Jun 04, 2018UD
Undisclosed Distributor #2
Jun 01, 2018Once again Hivision by-passed the distribution channel and goes direct, pffft.
Mick Brown
Jun 01, 2018Yes hik dahua follow the old British rule of divide and conquer
continuing to weaken partners anD
oem partners
this will increase bad debts as more
and more customers get squeezed on margin and sales
volumes drop
Mick Brown
Jun 01, 2018It’s unlikely in my view that hikvision have the expertise to make the body worn cameras
and probably rebranded from an incumbent Chinese supplier
the Chinese market is 750000 body worn cameras per annum
and this looks like a premium price of anything a basic body worn camera should be sub 150 usd for this volume
if Anything they over paid
worth investigating but I don’t believe either dahua or hikvision make body worn camera
merely buy they in and rebrand
UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #3
Jun 02, 2018Factory cost of this unit at this quantity would be around $60-70usd.
Assume there is some software backend, and additional equipment. It's fair to say someone is buying a nice new car and house with the profits on this little number.
2Inch screen, poor battery life, this is an old outdated device.
Hikvision don't specify the firmware or SoC inside. but my guess it's an Ambarella solution, because HiSilicon solutions use too much power and suck at being a Body Camera.
My guess is A7 solution.
Let's hope they don't put the laser on the devices and go blind someone these units all build in China are all the same, it's designed for domestic use. And lacks a lot of security features, like no encrypted video!
Mick Brown
Jun 02, 2018No china have a widespread of professional products in
this sector and are moving to new ambrallea a5 chip with facedetection
so they have much better solutions
this could also be mtec rather than ambrelia
the spec is just awful
Who on their right mind signed off on this entry model
UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #3
Jun 02, 2018Someone signed it off because they must of given lot of bottle of plonk!
I would also say the products are not professional, Nobody in China has encryption on the video. Smack open these units, put SDcard into a PC and read the contents.
I've been unable to locate a body camera on the fcc.io, so would seem indeed Hikvision with their mountains of cash for sure can't or don't make a BWC.
Mick Brown
Jun 02, 2018I don’t believe hik
make anything more than buy in bwc
no encryption may comtravein
gdpr
maybe the French police can arrest themselves
U
Undisclosed #4
Jun 02, 2018Mick Brown
Jun 02, 2018Even funnier macron banging on about gdpr
and then arms the
police with
non encrypted body worn cameras
In breech of article 6
on gdpr
perhaps he should
read it before he
tells everyone how
great it is
Mick Brown
Jun 02, 2018U
Undisclosed #4
Jun 02, 2018U
Undisclosed #4
Jun 03, 2018ok, this may seem to some as pathetic and needy - but in reality it is just my own personal OCD:
How can 2 people disagree with math?
Mick Brown
Jun 04, 2018Nobody was arguing about anything
in the original Thread this was put forward as low price
we merely speculated this looked expensive was the point
and they used a low cost model
they don’t specify chipset their is entry mtec chip and not the expensive ambrelia range
suppliers should specify their are 100s of usd between chipsets
in my view ambrelia is excellent
So is Sony but everyone in volume opts for omnivision and hisiiicon
make manufactures specify chipsets like pc companies do
intel inside for example
also the model of body worn camera and almost all Chinese dvr/nvr do not encrypt video so break gdpr
in fact dahua use a standard dfs
disk filing system so a hard drive can be taken out and read on a pc
Mick Brown
Jun 02, 2018Sure is a sweet deal
1.5 m in your pocket
U
Undisclosed #4
Jun 02, 2018probably more like 1 m - as the pockets of the deal makers most probably contain the remaining .5 m
Charles Rollet
Dec 15, 2020UPDATE: French newspaper l'Express reports that there is a new, 15 million euro ($18.2m) tender from the French Interior Ministry for 30,000 police body cams and Hikvision is competing for it. L'Express asked the Ministry about the US government's NDAA and human rights sanctions but the Ministry declined to comment. The tender process finishes on January 5, 2021.