Amazon.com Inc. faces questions from senators about a reported contract with Dahua, a Chinese security camera company that indicated it could alert police when its face recognition software identifies members of the Uighur ethnic group.
Sens. Robert Menendez (DN.J.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) Sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos one day after the Los Angeles Times reported on Dahua product support documents suggesting the company technology can sort passers-by by race, issue ‘real-time warnings for non-local Uighurs’ and follow ‘Uyghurs with hidden terrorist tendencies’.
Dahua is one of the Chinese companies included in the trade department’s trade list because of its links to ‘human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s repression campaign’ against Uighurs, a Turkish ethnic group. The US does not restrict US companies such as Amazon from buying from companies on the entity list, although it is cautious. Companies on the entity list may not buy American products.
Menendez and Rubio asked if Amazon knew that Dahua was on the list of entities when he was considering entering into a contract with the company and if it came up in the deliberations. According to a Reuters report, Dahua sold 1,500 thermal imaging cameras to Amazon in a deal worth an estimated $ 10 million.
“If these allegations against Dahua are true, it would mean that Amazon deliberately ignored the US government’s leadership and bought equipment from a company that is listed and complicit in China’s atrocities against ‘the Uighurs,’ the joint letter to Bezos. “While buying equipment from Dahua Technology is not illegal, it leaves many questions for you as the CEO of Amazon.”
Dahua said in a statement on Wednesday that the documents referred to by The Times and in a separate report by the IPVM news agency IPVM were ‘historical documents for the design of software’.
“Dahua will not provide the features or applications in the software products in the future,” the statement said. “Dahua will conduct a thorough internal investigation and strengthen the design review process and the management of the company’s research and development functions.”
Dahua said it “does not provide ethnicity detection products and services” in the “local markets reported by the media.”
According to the Times report, an Australian company is said to be breaking ties with Dahua after noticing a race-identifying feature in the software, and a US contractor unaware of the company’s name on the list of entities not.
Dahua did not address the question of whether these features work in other markets.
The company also said that total sales in “relevant regional markets are declining rapidly annually.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
‘These reports are extremely disturbing and show that the comprehensive surveillance system that the Chinese authorities [Uighurs] is just as bad as we feared, if not worse, ”the senators wrote in the letter.