China sees threat from foreign surveillance products

Beijing, March 28 (IANS) Warning of a potential national threat posed by excessive reliance on foreign surveillance equipment, standards and software, officials in China want the country to reduce such dependence.

According to government officials, China's reliance on foreign surveillance equipment, standards and software may threaten the country's security. And that, in turn, may lead to a greater use of a Chinese-developed standard for compressing video surveillance footage.

According to officials, security cameras play an important role in curbing crimes, the People's Daily reported.

"China's security cameras play an important role in countering crimes and maintaining social stability," said Chen Chaowu, deputy director of the Ministry of Public Security's first research institute.

"In some important areas and industries, we should avoid the risks to national security that might come from using overseas standards and products."

China has no official standard governing the compression of video surveillance. Even so, Surveillance Video and Audio Coding (SVAC), a standard that it took developers about two years to devise, has been in use by the government since May.

Video surveillance in China is still dominated by foreign companies, Chen said.

According to the market research company Frost & Sullivan, multinational corporations such as the US-based Cisco Systems Inc, the South Korea-based Samsung Group and the Japan-based Sony Corp, Canon Inc and Panasonic Corp command 80 percent of the Chinese market for such equipment.