Hikvision Joins UN Compact Despite Human Rights Abuses

Hikvision has joined Dahua in a United Nations group of corporations committed to advancing human rights despite their complicity in possible crimes against humanity. This advances Hikvision's strategy of mending its reputation via superficial accolades and initiatives instead of any action, admission, or amends related to its role in Xinjiang.

Even just in the last year, discoveries of Hikvision's involvement in human rights have included:

• Hikvision Wins Project Requiring Ramadan Alerts Against Minorities
• Hikvision Uyghur Recognition, NVIDIA-Powered, Sold To PRC China Authorities
• Hikvision Hired Attorney Admits Its Police Contracts Target Uyghurs
• Hikvision Violates Pledge, Ethnic Minority Analytics In Latest Platform

In this report, we examine Hikvision's newly announced membership, Dahua and Hikvision's reputation laundering strategy, and why they should be ineligible for the UN Global Compact.

Hikvision Joins UN Corporate Coalition

On February 6, 2024, Hikvision announced its acceptance into the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), touting the news in press releases and a LinkedIn post furnished with emojis, celebrating that "#TechForGood takes a GIANT leap today!" with Hikvision "joining forces with the United Nations Global Compact."

By the next day, the Uyghur Human Rights Project had condemned Hikvision's acceptance, calling on the UNGC to "expel genocide-enabling Chinese tech companies Hikvision and Dahua" who have "earned billions of dollars assisting the genocide of the Uyghur people."

The UNGC is a group of 20,000+ corporations that pledge to advance its Ten Principles, of which the first two focus on human rights:

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and

Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Hikvision's announcement follows Dahua's acceptance in October 2023. (Update 3/20/24: While Dahua announced its acceptance in October 2023, its UNGC page states it actually joined in August 2023.) By joining, the companies commit to annual reports of their progress in advancing the Ten Principles. Hikvision and Dahua will also pay a $25,000 and $15,000 annual fee, respectively, on top of the same amounts for their applications.

Dahua and Hikvision Use UNGC for Reputation Laundering

Membership in the UNGC is part of a broader strategy of initiatives devised by Dahua and Hikvision to rehabilitate their reputations.

They have been globally condemned over their involvement in the PRC China government's use of surveillance to persecute Uyghurs in Xinjiang. This includes:

• Dahua and Hikvision contracts to build and operate mass surveillance systems in various regions, including mosque and concentration camp surveillance systems.
• A Hikvision system to screen Uyghurs for detention in concentration camps and Hikvision systems to control prisoners inside concentration camps reported by a witness to be "everywhere."
• Dahua's "real-time Uyghur warnings," Hikvision's Uyghur recognition, and various other instances in which they trained facial recognition to detect ethnic Uyghurs.

The United Nations itself found in 2022 that Xinjiang's "highly invasive" surveillance systems are part of possible crimes against humanity.

The fallout has had tangible business implications for Dahua and Hikvision. The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund banned investment in Hikvision. The US sanctioned them. Some UK companies have banned them, while the Foreign Affairs Committee decided they "should not be permitted to operate within the UK" over "Xinjiang atrocities." Even where not banned, the companies' reputations have a chilling effect on companies and governments who might do business with them.

Dahua and Hikvision are now actively seeking to polish their reputations, but far from addressing human rights, they have launched a series of initiatives almost entirely focused on "sustainability." For instance, Dahua's initiatives include "an intelligent gibbon monitoring system" for a reserve in Hainan, China, while Hikvision is assisting sea turtles and pangolins.

The UNGC enables Dahua and Hikvision to elevate these initiatives - and their own reputations - by invoking the good name of the United Nations. While focusing only on sustainability and committing to no human rights action in their announcements, Dahua and Hikvision are reaping the benefits of membership in a broader initiative that covers human rights advancement while doing nothing themselves; they are only launching low-cost sustainability initiatives that require no actual structural change at the companies or victim remediation, but create the appearance of doing more.

IPVM covered Dahua and Hikvision's "reputation laundering" in greater depth in a recent report. As we wrote:

These initiatives epitomize the deceptive approach both Dahua and Hikvision take to marketing and public relations. To be sure, they may be having a positive impact, but they are designed to obscure the companies' actual records of callous disregard for China's Uyghur minority, falsely portraying Dahua and Hikvision as ethical companies. This is a form of reputational laundering.

In order to credibly engage in "corporate social responsibility," Dahua and Hikvision must start by taking accountability for their human rights violations, engaging honestly with the public, and creating a pathway for those whom they have harmed, namely Uyghurs, to seek remediation.

Instead, Dahua's Tech for Good and Hikvision's STAR programs serve as cheap substitutes for real corporate social responsibility. They are literally "cheap"; the companies' initiatives are minute in comparison to the vast scale of human rights abusing surveillance they have deployed just in Xinjiang alone.

Do Dahua and Hikvision Violate UNGC Exclusionary Criteria?

Given Dahua and Hikvision's human rights records, UNGC rules should make them ineligible for membership.

The UNGC's Joining Policy prohibits certain companies in order to "safeguard the integrity and reputation of the United Nations and the values it upholds." But this only includes those involved in tobacco production, selling antipersonnel landmines or cluster bombs, or subject to UN sanctions. Human rights abusers are not expressly prohibited.

However, the policy notes that the UNGC "reserves the right to reject" applicants if "allegations or findings that the applicant is egregiously or systematically abusing the Ten Principles" are discovered during its "review process" and "undermine the integrity and reputation of the initiative."

If, during the review process, the UN Global Compact Office identifies allegations or findings that the applicant is egregiously or systematically abusing the Ten Principles and the violations are deemed to undermine the integrity and reputation of the initiative, or if any of the information [provided by the applicant] is determined inaccurate, unclear, or incomplete, the UN Global Compact reserves the right to reject the application. [emphasis added]

On this basis, Dahua and Hikvision should be excluded by UNGC policy given the first and second of the Ten Principles:

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and

Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Dahua and Hikvision's complicity in human rights abuses, as outlined above, is the definition of egregious and systematic. Their conduct has harmed millions of people and occurred in multiple different ways over several years, with callous disregard for the "internationally proclaimed human rights" that UNGC members "should support and respect."

Furthermore, the UNGC's FAQ says membership "is open to any company that is serious about its commitment to work towards implementation of the UN Global Compact principles." But Dahua and Hikvision are demonstrably not "serious" about "implementation of the UN Global Compact principles."

Both companies have repeatedly lied and misled the public when accused of human rights violations, such as Hikvision saying in 2019 stopped developing Uyghur detection and repeated further development being discovered or its false description of Pierre-Richard Prosper's "independent" audit of Hikvision's human rights as clearing the company when, in fact, it incriminated them.

Dahua and Hikvision's announcements of their UN Global Compact further demonstrate they are unserious by making no mention of the glaring issue of how they can improve their human rights compliance.

A possible reason for Dahua and Hikvision's admission is that the UNGC feared reprisal from rejecting PRC companies. The PRC government has a track record of vocal opposition to any perceived slights at the United Nations, particularly on its human rights record. We expect the UNGC would be at similar risk of protest if they rejected Dahua or Hikvision.

No Response from UNGC regarding Hikvision application, Dahua investigation

IPVM contacted the UNGC for comment about Hikvision's admission, and with questions about whether they considered the allegations against Hikvision during the application process. The UNGC did not respond.

IPVM previously contacted the UNGC in October 2023 for comment regarding Dahua's admission. In their response below, they noted that "any concern raised...will be reviewed by our office." However, after repeated follow-ups, the UNGC has not confirmed the status of any investigation underway.

At the UN Global Compact, we support companies to be more ambitious and transparent in their efforts to implement the Ten Principles and make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. Participants commit to the UN Secretary General to take a responsible approach to conduct business guided by the Ten Principles, and in support of UN goals. As a matter of policy, we do not comment on allegations about individual companies nor on any process that may be established under our Integrity Measures. Any concern raised to the UN Global Compact by external stakeholders will be reviewed by our office and a response will be provided in alignment with the Integrity Measures policy. [emphasis added]

No Response from Hikvision, Dahua

IPVM contacted Dahua and Hikvision for comment. They did not respond.