My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has given an eloquent exposition of the reasons for supporting his Motion of Regret. The Motion refers to the ethical and human rights considerations that attach to the use of surveillance camera technology, and it is to those two considerations that I shall address my remarks. I especially draw the Minister’s attention to the Amnesty International report of 3 June 2021 about the use of surveillance technology in New York, to which the noble Lord referred, and also to the serious civil liberty questions that that report raised. Concerns were raised in Japan on 28 December, in Yomiuri Shimbun, and in the Financial Times on 10 June, about Chinese technology in Belgrade, and on the Asia News Monitor in November 2021 in a report from Thailand about mass surveillance against Uighurs in Xinjiang, as well as a report in the Telegraph of 1 December, in which the head of MI6, Richard Moore, said that
“technologies of control … are increasingly being exported to other governments by China—expanding the web of authoritarian control around the planet”.
It is not just control—it is also a keystone in the export of truly shocking crimes against humanity and even genocide. Just a week ago, we marked Holocaust Memorial Day, on which many colleagues from across the House signed the Holocaust Memorial Day book or issued statements recommitting to never allowing such a genocide to happen ever again. Yet, sadly, in 2022, as the Foreign Secretary has said, a genocide against the Uighur Muslims is taking place in Xinjiang. As I argued in our debate on Monday, we are doing far too little to sanction those companies that are actively involved, or to regulate and restrict the facial recognition software that has allowed the Chinese state to incarcerate and enslave more than a million Uighurs.
In the 1940s, we did not allow the widespread use of IBM’s machines, or other tools of genocide used in Nazi Germany and manufactured by slave labour in factories and concentration camps, to be sold in the United Kingdom. Today we find ourselves in the perverse situation of having Chinese surveillance cameras with facial recognition software being used in government departments, hospitals, schools and local councils as well as in shops, such as Tesco and Starbucks. It is an issue that I doggedly raised during our debates on the telecommunications Bills that have recently been before your Lordships’ House. As I said in those debates, a series of freedom of information requests in February 2021 found that more than 70% of local councils use surveillance cameras and software from either Dahua Technology or Hikvision, which are companies rightly subject to United States sanctions for their involvement in the development and installation of technology and software that targets Uighur Muslims. Nevertheless, these companies are free to operate in the United Kingdom.
So much for co-ordinating our response with our Five Eyes allies, which was the subject of one amendment that I laid before your Lordships’ House. Far from being a reputable or independent private company, more than 42% of Hikvision is owned by Chinese
state-controlled enterprises. According to Hikvision’s accounts, for the first half of 2021, the company received RMB 223 million in state subsidies, while the company works hand in glove with the authorities in Xinjiang, having signed five public-private partnerships with them since 2017. What is perhaps just as disturbing are the recent reports in the Mail on Sunday that Hikvision received up to £10,000 per month of furlough money from United Kingdom taxpayers from December 2020 until February 2021. How can it be right that, at a time when the US Government are sanctioning Hikvision for its links to Uighur concentration camps, the UK Government are giving them taxpayer money and Covid furlough funds?
It is clear that the introduction and use of this type of facial recognition software technology by the police needs substantial regulation and oversight, especially because of the dominance of sanctioned Chinese companies in the UK surveillance market. Hikvision alone has nearly 20% of the global surveillance camera market. Hikvision is working hard to penetrate and dominate the UK surveillance technology sector. In May 2021, it launched a consultant support programme and demonstration vehicles so it could bring its technology
“to all parts of the United Kingdom”.
In October, it became corporate partner in the Security Institute, the UK’s largest membership body for security professionals, and it has launched a dedicated UK technology partner programme. All of this deserves further investigation by our domestic intelligence services.
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I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, a long-time friend, that the surveillance camera code of practice is insufficient in addressing legitimate human rights concerns around the widespread use of such technology. Nor do I think this technology is conducive or necessary for the police to maintain public safety or to tackle criminal enterprise. Despite some of the recent instances of poor policing in this country, on the whole we have a better culture of policing—a point that the Minister often makes, and I agree with her—that recognises the balance between protecting public order and serving the community, certainly in comparison with many other developed countries. We should therefore be cautious about importing both the technology and the tactics of authoritarian regimes. After all, these tactics and technology come from countries that do not have the rule of law and seek to maintain the power of their regimes through a mixture of brutality, fear and the regular incarceration of their people, which is made all the easier by the unregulated use of facial recognition software and surveillance.
More broadly, the Government need to look seriously at banning the participation of Hikvision, Dahua Technology and other sanctioned companies from the UK market. We should emulate the USA and Australia, which have recognised not only the human rights concerns but the national security concerns regarding these cameras. Those countries are actively removing Hikvision cameras from public buildings.
The UK should also introduce its own entities list, which would include sanctions and investment bans against Chinese companies actively involved in the
construction and maintenance of the concentration camps in Xinjiang. That would include the likes of Hikvision, Dahua Technology, SenseTime and the audio recording company iFlytek. In particular, it is particularly unacceptable that Legal and General, the largest pension fund manager in the UK, continues to have holdings in iFlytek.
The Minister should explain to the House why Hikvision was able to access the UK furlough scheme, what efforts the Government will take to recoup taxpayers’ money that has gone to Chinese companies sanctioned for their involvement in genocide—an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, during his recent resignation statement—and why Hikvision has not been banned here, as it has in the US.
It is clear that there needs to be legislation to regulate the use of facial recognition software and surveillance technology in the United Kingdom. I strongly agree with the recommendation made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, referring to his Private Member’s Bill. I urge the Minister to work with colleagues to bring forward legislation in this area at the earliest opportunity. She should rest assured that if the Government do not, I am sure that noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, will continue to press for legislation to that effect.
As a society, we must work harder to repudiate those few misguided individuals who seek to import and expand the use of Chinese facial recognition technology, software and tactics in the UK. Those who think that China’s social credit system or mass surveillance system are benign, or at the very least economically beneficial, need to have their heads examined. They may couch these policies in the language of technological progress but, as history has shown, such intrusive mass-surveillance systems have always been the handmaiden of fascism.
I hope that the Minister will carefully respond to what I have said today and that all of us can work to regulate the use of this technology and to make the presence of Hikvision and Dahua Technology in the UK history.