SURVEILLANCE cameras made by companies owned by the Chinese Communist Party - and used to monitor and control people across the authoritarian state - have 'no place in Cumbria', a campaign group has said. 

The Chinese state-owned CCTV provider Hikvision has been linked to using facial recognition technology to aid the Chinese government’s alleged containment of Uyghurs and Muslim minorities in Xinjiang internment camps - although the Chinese government denies this and describes them as 'vocational education and training centers'.

There are currently over one million of the cameras within the UK, with a large part of the public sector using the technology.

Campaign groups across the world are calling for their ban, in order to prevent what they say is an 'Orwellian' society, in which people's movements are tracked and controlled by increasingly sophisticated technology.

According to the group Big Brother Watch, over half of NHS Trusts use the CCTV, 31 per cent of police forces use the technology, as well as three out of five schools.

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In terms of the county council, a recent Freedom of Information request showed that Cumbria County Council has just one network of Hikvision CCTV camera systems deployed on one of their buildings.

The FOI response read: "Cumbria County Council has one network connected Hikvision CCTV camera system deployed on a single council premise.

"Whilst it is connected to the network there are a number of physical and software-based technical controls that prevent the CCTV infrastructure from accessing the internet.

"The system cannot be accessed externally and is fully segregated internally."

'A serious risk to the rights and security of people in Britain'

Head of research and investigations at campaign group Big Brother Watch, Jake Hurfurt, said both Barrow and Carlisle have Hikvision installed within the region and whilst there may be preventative measures in place, no system is completely secure from 'hacks and vulnerabilities'.

"Chinese state-owned CCTV has no place on Cumbria's streets," he said. "Hikvision and [another company] Dahua are both linked to atrocities against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the UK government should look at banning their technology in this country.

"The widespread use of Hikvision and Dahua CCTV in the UK is creating an Orwellian surveillance state that poses a serious risk to the rights and security of people in Britain, and provides indirect support to China's persecution of minority communities.

"This is why we are urging the new Prime Minister to follow the US example and urgently ban Hikvision and Dahua from operating in the UK."

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