Warns farmers against buying their products
Farmers Forum staff
OTTAWA — Canada booted Chinese surveillance camera maker Hikvision out of the country in early July, and agri-food companies and other businesses are being warned to stay away from Hikvision.
Why? The Canadian government says the Chinese Communist Party could be using the company to spy on Canadians.
The United States has banned government agencies and contractors from using the surveillance cameras as a cybersecurity risk. Critics argue that the cameras could include embedded viruses.
Electronic monitoring cameras are commonly found at many farms and food processing plants.
“Canadians are strongly encouraged to take note of this decision and make their own decisions accordingly,” a Canadian Food Inspection Agency spokesperson told Farmers Forum.
Chinese companies have a long history of stealing intellectual property and using many means to spy on other countries. In May, U.S. officials found Chinese communications devices hidden in power inverters used in solar panels. The U.S. has banned or partially banned more than 600 Chinese companies in the last 10 years. Only about 2 to 5 Chinese companies have been banned from Canada.
The United States this year has also proposed a ban on foreign nationals from China, Iran, Russia and North Korea, from buying farmland.
Hikvision has been fully banned from selling its camera systems south of the border since 2022. Canada finally came around to the same position on June 27 when Federal Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announced the company’s expulsion from Canada.
Following a review of security and intelligence evidence, the government determined that Hikvision’s “continued operations in Canada would be injurious to Canada’s national security,” Joly said in a statement posted to social media.
Ottawa intends to purge any existing Hikvision equipment from government properties, while prohibiting departments, agencies and Crown corporations from using or buying more of it.
Already in 2019, the U.S. prohibited the importation of the company’s equipment without special permission, prior to imposing an outright ban on Hikvision and several other Chinese entities, including Huawei, in November 2022. The UK — one of the world’s most surveilled societies outside of China, according to Time magazine — banned Hikvision cameras from sensitive sites that same month.
