Responding to the Government’s decision to install 38 Hikvision cameras along the Coronation route, Big Brother Watch’s Legal and Policy Officer Madeleine Stone said:
“The Government’s decision to install 38 Hikvision cameras along the Coronation route shows a staggering lack of judgement, especially given that Hikvision is already banned from many Government sites. It is grossly inappropriate, deeply insensitive, and a stain on our country’s record that Chinese state-owned companies closely linked to grave human rights abuses will have their surveillance tech at the heart of this historic event.
The installation of intrusive, rights-abusive CCTV, coupled with the Met’s decision to deploy live facial recognition on a huge scale, means the Coronation is fast turning into a surveillance nightmare.
Hikvision has no place in the UK, let alone at the Coronation where hundreds of thousands of people will be gathered. The Culture Secretary should urgently review this unfathomable decision and the Government should ban Chinese state-owned surveillance companies from the UK altogether.”
Notes:
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