On March 6, Arunachal Pradesh MLA Ninong Ering wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting a ban on Chinese Close Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras throughout India, citing a rising danger to national security, expressing concern that these can be used as the “eyes and ears for Beijing”.
The lawmaker also advocated for a public awareness campaign educating people against using Chinese CCTVs in their homes. Taking note of a media report, the Congress MLA, in his letter, stated that Chinese hackers have regularly attacked Indian institutions, including a thwarted attempt to jeopardise the seven major electricity load dispatch centres (ELDCs) near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh.
“In a detailed article titled ‘The China Snooping Menace’ from one of the major media houses in the country, it was revealed that Chinese-made CCTVs currently in use across India can be used as ‘eyes and ears for Beijing’. Also, the threat to India’s national security becomes graver since the existing laws and awareness are inadequate to deal with this threat,” the former union minister said in its letter.
“Chinese hackers have regularly attacked Indian institutions, including a thwarted attempt to jeopardise the seven major electricity load dispatch centres (ELDCs) near the LAC to Ladakh. In connection with this, a US-based cyber security firm has revealed that Internet Protocol (IP) cameras, often used in Close Circuit Television (CCTV) networks and Internet-operated Digital Video Recording (DVR) devices, were compromised in operation by the Chinese hackers. An estimate by the centre showed that over two million CCTVs installed across India, with over 90 per cent of them made by companies the Chinese government partially owns,” the letter read.
Arunachal Pradesh MLA also highlighted that more than half of these Chinese CCTVs were installed in government offices in India.
“The Minister of state for communications and IT, Sanjay Dhotre, in Lok Sabha has even called the problem of such CCTVs “vulnerabilities” that can transfer sensitive data to servers abroad. Experts have also repeatedly pointed out that these CCTVs have a weak technical architecture that can easily be compromised and used for offensive purposes. These CCTVs can effectively become eyes and ears for anti-India forces. Chinese CCTV systems made by Hikvision and Prams Hikvision have even found their way to India’s Southern Naval Command, located in Kochi,” the letter read.
The Congress lawmaker also mentioned in his letter that he had earlier raised his concerns regarding another Chinese company Huawei.
“I will like to respectfully remind you that in my letter to you on 2nd July 2020, I wrote about how Iluawei was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfci, a former engineer in the Chinese army. Under uniquely opaque Chinese law and governance in practice, Huawei will likely not be able to refuse the Chinese agencies against any demands for cooperation to collect information on India,” he said in his letter.
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