US, Allies Should Quickly Impose Human Rights Sanctions Against Hikvision, Tech Expert Says
The U.S. should soon impose “hard-hitting” Magnitsky sanctions against Chinese artificial intelligence surveillance company Hikvision for its role in human rights violations in Xinjiang, which could help deter other companies from supporting the region’s surveillance complex, said Dahlia Peterson, a research analyst at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Although the U.S. added Hikvision to the Entity List in 2019 (see 2205090014), placing the company on the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals List would “be a step forward,” Peterson said.
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“The United States and its allies should move to quickly implement the Global Magnitsky Act across their sanctions regimes and supercharge the existing suite of policy actions against Hikvision,” Peterson wrote in a June 6 post for The National Interest.
Increased sanctions are warranted because it’s unclear how much of an impact the Entity List is having on Hikvision’s operations, Peterson wrote. Companies on the list sometimes find loopholes, including sourcing U.S. technology through “alternate means” or developing their own alternatives, Peterson said. She said Hikvision has suggested that most of its U.S. components “could be substituted with minimal impact on product performance.”
But adding Hikvision to the SDN List, which would cut it off from the global financial system, would be a “very different story,” Peterson wrote. “If enforced to the hilt, especially in concert with allies’ parallel sanction regimes, this policy could jeopardize the 27 percent of total revenue that Hikvision derives from overseas and turn Hikvision into a pariah outside of China,” she said.
After adding Hikvision to the SDN List, the Biden administration should also signal that it will evaluate “the possibility of adding other major players to the SDN list,” Peterson said, which could deter other Chinese companies from acting as “substitutes.” She especially pointed to Alibaba, Dahua, Huawei, Megvii, SenseTime and Tiandy, all Chinese companies that provide surveillance technology. The White House didn’t comment.