Australia to remove China-linked security cameras from defence offices over spying concerns
- Defence Minister Richard Marles said he will order an assessment of the surveillance technology made by Hikvision and Dahua in his department
- The national war memorial in Canberra announced it would remove several Chinese-made cameras installed on the premises over concerns of spying
The Australian government will examine surveillance technology used in offices of the defence department, Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Thursday, amid reports the Chinese-made cameras installed there raised security risks.
The move comes after Britain in November asked its departments to stop installing Chinese-linked surveillance cameras at sensitive buildings. Some US states have banned vendors and products from several Chinese technology companies.
“This is an issue and … we’re doing an assessment of all the technology for surveillance within the defence [department] and where those particular cameras are found, they are going to be removed,” Marles told ABC Radio in an interview.
Opposition lawmaker James Paterson said on Thursday his own audit had revealed almost 1,000 units of equipment by Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology and Dahua Technology Co – two partly state-owned Chinese firms – were installed across more than 250 Australian government offices.
Paterson, the shadow minister for cybersecurity and countering foreign interference, urged the government to urgently come up with a plan to remove all such cameras.