08.05.2024.

Chinese-Made Surveillance Cameras Are Spreading Across Eastern Europe, Despite Security Concerns

Central and Eastern European countries have purchased millions of Chinese-made surveillance cameras over the last five years, despite the devices’ security vulnerabilities and the manufacturers’ lax data practices and ties to the Chinese state, an RFE/RL survey of nine countries shows.

RFE/RL’s reporting reveals the growing use of Chinese-made cameras in countries that are either EU and NATO members or aspiring to join, and where budget conscious governments are increasingly turning to affordable and state-subsidized Chinese companies.

While public national databases for surveillance cameras do not exist for most countries, available data and reporting by RFE/RL shows Dahua and Hikvision -- two partially state-owned Chinese companies that are among the world's leading providers of closed-circuit television and surveillance systems -- dominating markets in Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Bulgaria, and Georgia.

"The biggest distinction between these [Chinese firms] and others is that other companies don't have such an extensive and critical catalogue of vulnerabilities to exploit," Conor Healy, the director of government research at IPVM, a surveillance-industry research firm, told RFE/RL. "Fundamentally security is about planning for hypothetical threats, and governments and national security organizations need to be focused on this."

RFE/RL reporting shows that despite escalating scrutiny in Western capitals about an overreliance on Chinese technology in critical infrastructure, Dahua and Hikvision cameras are also in use at sensitive sites, including military bases in Romania and special police headquarters in Hungary, which experts say exposes them to hackers and foreign adversaries.

While countries like the United States, Britain, and Australia have blacklisted the two firms, no such ban exists in Europe. But amid a landmark European visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping that began on May 5, a slew of Chinese espionage scandals across the continent, and an EU crackdown on Chinese trade practices, the companies’ foothold in Europe marks another potential flashpoint.

"We've seen the conversation evolve over time in places like the United States and lead to a ban, but it's still unclear which path European countries will follow," Healy added.

Jump To A Country:

Hungary

There are no official figures for the number of Chinese-made surveillance cameras purchased by Hungary or the extent of the use of Chinese facial-recognition technology.

But according to Shodan, a search engine for Internet-connected devices, there are 3,567 Dahua and 18,166 Hikvision devices operating in the country.

According to the Hungarian news site Atlatszo, Hungary’s national police inked their first contracts with Dahua in 2017, signing deals for the country’s border guards and the police’s own administrative system to use the company’s cameras and software.

Data compiled from Hungary’s Electric Public Procurement System shows that several universities and the Academy of Sciences have purchased Hikvision products. Several local administrations as well as Hungary’s riot police also use the Chinese company’s surveillance cameras.

In some instances, however, the use of the Chinese products have been barred. In one case in 2023, the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall blocked the use of Chinese cameras at its factory in western Hungary.

Still, the use of the equipment looks set to increase, especially as ties between Budapest and Beijing deepen under Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

In February, Hungary signed a security deal with China to enhance cooperation between their law enforcement agencies. The agreement could see Chinese police patrols in well-trafficked parts of Budapest, which is home to Central Europe's largest Chinese diaspora. It's unclear how data and access to cameras will be shared between Hungarian and Chinese officials, but the move has raised alarm bells in Brussels and among Chinese activists abroad.

Ukraine

Hundreds of thousands of Dahua and Hikvision cameras have been installed throughout Ukraine, according to data compiled by the industry database ImportGenius and shared with RFE/RL.

Ukrainian law enforcement and private firms have purchased large numbers of the Chinese-made surveillance cameras. According to ImportGenius, the Ukrainian company Trading House of Video Surveillance Systems is the largest buyer of Dahua cameras and other equipment. Data shows that the Ukrainian company purchased more than 1 million video surveillance devices -- which includes surveillance cameras, thermal imaging devices, intercoms, and other equipment with cameras -- from 2016 to 2023.

ImportGenius figures also show a group of Ukrainian companies that work directly with Hikvision have imported similar numbers of video surveillance devices during the same period.

But security concerns have also been raised about Dahua and Hikvision cameras.

In January, the State Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) claimed that Russian intelligence hacked into two surveillance cameras in Kyiv ahead of a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian capital that killed at least three people.

A Ukrainian law enforcement official who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject told Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, that one of the cameras was made by Hikvision and installed in 2016.

Moldova

Moldova has purchased thousands of Chinese surveillance cameras for its police, military, and diplomatic service in the past five years, according to public procurement data, but the exact number remains unclear.

The country does not have a public database for how many surveillance cameras it operates. But figures from Shodan list 15,133 Hikvision and 4,177 Dahua cameras.

Moldova’s public procurement portal, achizitii.md, shows that more than 7,210 Dahua and Hikvision cameras were purchased between 2018 and 2023. Among the top buyers were security bodies such as the police and the Decebal Aviation Regiment under the Ministry of Defense, as well as the Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the National Bank.

Chinese-made cameras have also made their way into the public transportation system, with trolleybuses in the capital, Chisinau, equipped with Dahua cameras. The National Administration of Penitentiaries has also turned to the two manufacturers, acquiring and installing more than 800 Chinese cameras in its facilities between 2018 and 2023.

Moldova’s Central Election Commission also procured 2,300 surveillance cameras after the country’s 2019 parliamentary elections. Procurement data shows this was purchased from a company named Rapid Link, an authorized distributor of Hikvision.

Serbia

Serbian customs figures do not specify the import of Chinese-made surveillance cameras, but the data over the last five years shows a steady increase in the number of cameras purchased over that time. In 2023 alone, Belgrade spent around $5.8 million on cameras.

Most of the cameras in the country are bought by private companies, which then sell them to local governments.

According to a 2023 RFE/RL investigation, more than 40 municipalities and cities in Serbia -- almost one-third of all local governments in the country -- have public video surveillance and traffic monitoring systems bought from Dahua, Hikvision, or another Chinese manufacturer. This expansion took place over the last five years at a cost of approximately $32 million.

The equipment was sold to these municipalities by Macchina Security, a shadowy Belgrade-based firm that imports Chinese technology into the Balkan country and has been winning contracts over the last several years.

According to documents obtained by RFE/RL, the Serbian government has purchased 15 different types of cameras from manufacturers in Poland, Australia, the United States, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary, and a local Serbian company. But Serbian municipalities around the country appear to have bought more cameras from Dahua compared to other companies.

According to documents obtained under freedom of information requests by RFE/RL, 10 of 42 municipalities and cities surveyed bought cameras with facial-recognition technology. That marks an existing sore spot in Serbia, where the government has tried several times to push through legislation that would give it broad authority to use facial-recognition technology in public.

Serbia has installed more than 1,000 surveillance cameras with facial-recognition capabilities made by China's Huawei in recent years.

The rollout in Belgrade has been controversial as Serbia does not have proper data-privacy laws to process the biometric information taken from facial-recognition recordings. A 2022 RFE/RL investigation found how Serbian officials are already using Chinese tech to track and target activists and protesters, raising concerns that more advanced Chinese-made surveillance equipment could be abused.

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Bosnia-Herzegovina, where power is subdivided into national and several lower-level entities, does not have a countrywide database. But data from local ministries, cities, and municipalities show the increasing use of surveillance cameras in recent years.

According to data from the Administration for Indirect Taxation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the import of recording equipment from China has increased in the last five years. State procurement data shows a rise in imports from $3.4 million in 2018 to $5.4 million in 2023.

The Interior Ministry of Republika Srpska, the country’s predominantly ethnic Serb entity, told RFE/RL that in 2023 alone, 139 cameras from Dahua were purchased for a total of $47,000. Banja Luka, the political and financial center of Republika Srpska, is also home to a smart-city project that has already installed 265 out of the 325 Dahua cameras it planned.

In the mostly Bosniak-Croat federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is made up of 10 cantonal governments, the data is an opaque patchwork.

The Interior Ministry of Canton 10 told RFE/RL that it only purchased three Hikvision cameras in 2023. Other government bodies, such as the Interior Ministry of the Bosnia-Podrinje Canton, said that they do not have information on the country of origin for their purchases.

The Interior Ministry in Sarajevo says that in the last five years they have acquired only two cameras from Chinese manufacturers, without saying which company they purchased them from.

They emphasized that the Sarajevo police, in accordance with the law, can gain access to cameras that are installed in public areas by other government institutions.

Bosnia’s border police told RFE/RL that they have not purchased any Chinese equipment.

Kosovo

Like with many other countries, Kosovar customs data does not distinguish between different companies and the type of cameras. But surveillance cameras are in wide use in Pristina, the capital.

On a recent tour of Pristina, an RFE/RL reporter observed multiple Dahua and Hikvision cameras installed in city squares as well as on government buildings, including the State Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of Trade, and the Ministry of Health. Kosovar officials confirmed to RFE/RL that the cameras on the government buildings were purchased in 2020 and 2021.

Adding to the complications for tracking the spread of Chinese cameras across Kosovo, authorities from Serb-dominated regions of the country have signed deals to import Dahua and Hikvision equipment from Serbia.

The transactions are beyond Pristina’s control, and an RFE/RL investigation from 2022 found tens of thousands of dollars worth of Dahua surveillance equipment was purchased for schools in a predominantly Serb provisional authority in southeastern Kosovo. Documents for the deal stated that a Serbian government office that steers relations with Kosovo provided the funding.

Romania

There is no central database in Romania, but industry surveys and public procurement portals show that the use of Chinese-made surveillance cameras is expanding. Some have even been installed at sensitive security sites.

According to one global surveillance industry report from 2021, there were 189,452 active Dahua and Hikvision cameras in Romania, the eighth highest in the world.

A recent RFE/RL investigation also found that surveillance equipment made by Hikvision and Dahua is used in at least 28 military facilities in the country. The equipment is also used by hundreds of other public institutions involved in national security.

RFE/RL also found that Hikvision cameras were being used at a military base in Deveselu, which is home to NATO's Aegis Ashore land-based missile-defense system.

Romanian officials have defended the use of Chinese-made cameras, saying that they fall within government procurement parameters for new equipment and that all cameras are kept offline to prevent some of the security risks found in Dahua and Hikvision technology.

Experts, however, told RFE/RL that more advanced hackers could still gain access and that there have been recent examples of hacking groups accessing closed camera systems by hacking into a computer's operating system online and then being able to infiltrate into offline networks.

Bulgaria

While Dahua and Hikvision cameras can be seen around the capital, Sofia, and on government buildings, the Bulgarian government has not published figures on the number of cameras in use and did not reply to RFE/RL’s requests for comment.

The largest public procurement for the equipment centers around a 2018 contract with a consortium of companies to purchase Hikvision cameras and affiliated technology for $45 million, with the aim of installing a total of 4,300 cameras on buses, trams, and trolleybuses in Sofia.

The video-surveillance system in the public transport system was launched in 2020. The rollout faced public pushback from privacy activists in 2023 over concerns that the camera feeds could be accessed by organized crime groups or hackers.

Georgia

Nearly 80 percent of the cameras installed in the country come from Hikvision and Dahua, according to an analysis by RFE/RL's Georgian Service based on customs data, procurement figures, and original reporting.

The exact number of Chinese cameras in Georgia is difficult to determine. Available customs data for all camera imports shows a dramatic rise over the last five years. In 2023 alone, Georgia purchased more than 10,000 cameras, compared to less than a 1,000 units in 2020.

A large portion of these imports appear to have been bought by Georgian law enforcement. Government procurement data and customs figures cross-referenced by RFE/RL’s Georgian Service show that the country’s police force operates over 7,379 surveillance cameras nationwide, with nearly all of them made by Dahua, Hikvision, or another Chinese manufacturer.

Written by Reid Standish with contributions from RFE/RL Balkan Service's Meliha Kesmer, Doruntina Baliu, Mirjana Jevtovic, and Natalija Jovanovic; RFE/RL Romanian Service's Ionut Benea; RFE/RL Bulgarian Service's Ivan Bedrov; RFE/RL Georgian Service's Nastasia Arabuli; RFE/RL Ukrainian Service's Kyrylo Ovsianyi; RFE/RL Hungarian Service's Adam Kertesz; and RFE/RL Moldovan Service's Denis Dermenji. Graphics by Ivan Gutterman.

----

Warnings about the security threat posed by the use of equipment from Chinese state-affiliated manufacturers have been ongoing for years. In most Western European countries, the use of such equipment for security purposes (such as video surveillance, etc.) has been minimized or completely banned (e.g., the UK, US). Unfortunately, in some EU countries, Western Balkan countries, and Eastern Partnership countries, equipment from Chinese manufacturers, partly owned by the Chinese state, is predominantly used. In the Western Balkan countries, the decisive factor in the procurement of such equipment by institutions is often the public procurement system. Since Chinese manufacturers of this equipment are subsidized by the state, their offers are usually the most favorable. In publicly announced tenders, there is often no provision prohibiting manufacturers from sharing data collected by this equipment with anyone. Due to several scandals involving the sharing of (confidential) data with the Chinese state by these manufacturers, most governments of Western countries rarely or never procure equipment from Chinese manufacturers.

Frequent warnings to exercise caution when procuring equipment from Chinese manufacturers, which ultimately is used to collect confidential data, apparently have little resonance in Western Balkan countries. Lack of awareness, and possibly tender provisions seeking the lowest price without security provisions for collected data, result in this equipment being present in most Western Balkan countries.

It may not be too late for government institutions needing to procure this type of equipment to protect themselves from potential exposure to data misuse by Chinese suppliers. Companies procuring this equipment for business purposes should also exercise additional caution because there are no guarantees that sensitive business data will not end up with competitors in China one day, directly endangering the company's operations.