Australian Defense Ministry has issued a ban on the use of Chinese surveillance cameras and products inside all government buildings from now on. Meaning, all new purchases will be halted and the existing hardware and related software will be replaced in a phased manner.
The issue resumed significance when certain fears were raised in Britain regarding surveillance software and hardware being discovered inside the cars used by UK Government officials and elected members.
Richard Marles, the deputy, confirmed the ban and added that the decision was taken out of concern that the CCTV cameras were sending sensitive data to servers operating in China.
Going deep into the details, an audit was conducted by Shadow Cyber Security Ministry to find a shocking number (969) of Chinese devices being used in government buildings related to defense, foreign affairs, finance and attorney-general office.
And on January 6th of this year, an alarm was raised against the practice of using CCTV devices by the Anthony Albanese administration.
After taking certain factors into account, the Albanese government has now imposed a ban on surveillance devices manufactured by the Xi Jinping led nation. Hikvision and Dahua cameras, that are reported to be business-funded by the government, will top the list of bans followed by other low-cost OEMs.
NOTE- Any device that has a silicon wafer embedded in it can conduct surveillance. So, are all such devices harmful to National Security? Only time can give an apt answer to this question….!
