back to article US cities and towns purchase AI surveillance kit linked to China's Uyghur abuse

Nearly a hundred counties, towns and cities across the US have purchased surveillance cameras from Chinese companies blocked by the federal government over the human rights abuse of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. Companies like Hikvision and Dahua were placed on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List back in 2019. Federal …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Outrage over the human rights abuse in China

    from a country with the largest number of prisoners per 100,000 of the national population and, at the same time the largest number of prisoners.

    Nice!

    1. Tomato42
      Meh

      Re: Outrage over the human rights abuse in China

      Da Camrade! Whattaboutism! It will shov dem!

    2. Potemkine! Silver badge

      Re: Outrage over the human rights abuse in China

      Two wrongs don't make it right.

      1. bryces666
        Facepalm

        Re: Outrage over the human rights abuse in China

        "Two wrongs don't make it right."

        Did you intend me (us?) to immediately think of the dated racist joke:

        "Two Wongs don't make a Right".

        Damn, sorry, my deficient grey matter is showing its age again... I'll show myself out..

  2. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Thermal cameras

    in a school? I'm surprised to read that. Though given that it is the U.S.A. I am surprised that I am surprised .

    1. Cuddles

      Re: Thermal cameras

      That was my first thought, but reading the linked article makes it clear that it's actually talking about systems used for taking temperature measurements for Covid screening, not some nefarious surveillance thing. The actual news was that they blew half a million on non-functional cameras because they didn't bother buying the calibration devices to go with them so they could boast about getting them cheaper than other schools.

  3. sanmigueelbeer
    Coat

    American institutions cannot/could not even buy American-made product.

    Whatta shame.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Please remember that American-made means "Made in China".

  4. Danny Boyd

    What goes around...

    It's a good time for Biden administration to impose strict economic sanctions on US for violating the human rights Chinese-style. To be consistent, so to say.

    What? No sanctions? You don't say!

  5. ThatOne Silver badge
    Holmes

    Patient data is sensitive...

    > privacy laws in the US have to be strengthened to ensure that data is not misused

    And a lot, too! In Europe the laws are stronger and yet data is routinely misused, proof that even there laws are not strong enough. Not enough to compel anybody to more than a couple hollow phrases about how important patients' privacy is to them.

  6. martinusher Silver badge

    "Linked To..."

    ...means what, exactly?

    A company makes equipment and sells it to numerous customers who use it for diverse activities. Surveillance cameras are widely used (the UK's a pioneer in this technology) so many of the uses will be controversial.

    People tend to forget that China's quite large and diverse. Physically its about the size of Europe so its not surprising that its structured into relatively self-governing provinces (there's "32 and a bit" -- Taiwan is listed as #33). In our world we tend to think of the country as homogeneous, as an army of faceless people who all look alike, think alike and who act like puppets blindly following their Bejing puppet masters. This isn't realistic, so the fact that a company in eastern China sells kit to both a government in western China and to local governments in the US isn't surprising, its just 'commerce'.

    The Entity List thing is pure politics, BTW. Speaking as an American I can say that the sanctions industry is one of the bright spots in our economy. Nobody seems to quite know how many people are involved in developing, implementing and enforcing sanctions of various sorts against whatever target seems most politically expedient on a particular day.

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