[ad_1]
A Chinese company is selling its surveillance technology to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, police and military. A new report by IPVM, a surveillance research group. Tiandy is one of the world’s largest video surveillance companies, reporting sales of nearly $700 million in 2020. The company sells AI-enabled software, including cameras and accompanying facial recognition technology. and “intelligent” interrogation tables for use with “tiger chairs” that have been widely documented as instruments of torture.
The report is a rare look at some of the features of China’s strategic relationship with Iran and how the country is deploying surveillance technology to other autocracies abroad.
Tiandy’s “ethnicity tracking” tool, widely discussed by experts as both inaccurate and unethical, It is believed to be one of the few AI-based systems by the Chinese government. is using it to suppress the Uyghur minority group in the country’s Xinjiang province. Huawei’s facial recognition feature software, emotion detection artificial intelligence technologies and others. (Huawei denied involvement in the region.)
Based on analysis of Tiandy’s public social media posts and web marketing materials, the report shows that the company has signed a five-year contract in Iran, where it plans to have eight local staff members. The report also states that although Tiandy is privately owned, its CEO Dai Lin is a public supporter of the ruling Communist Party in China, and that the company A major supplier to the Chinese government. While the exact suite of surveillance capabilities Tiandy will sell to Iran is unclear, IPVM has found that Tiandy cameras are used by Iranian company Sairan – a “state-owned military electronics provider” – and at an undisclosed military base. Tiandy also promotes various projects in Iran. public websiteIncluding working with a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and the police in the northern city of Khomam.
More importantly, the report revealed that Tiandy’s networked video recorders (NVRs) are used by and are used by the Iranian military. Powered by chips made by US manufacturer Intelraises questions about whether the company violated US sanctions on Iran. “We have no knowledge of the alleged allegations and are investigating the situation,” Intel spokesperson Penny Bruce told MIT Technology Review.
An emerging partnership
The new report is one of the few solid pieces of evidence that experts have long suspected: that Iran is trying to establish a system of digital control over its citizens, following the Chinese model and using Chinese tools. Saeid Golkar, an Iranian security expert and professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, says censorship and surveillance are the core principles of this model. “The Islamic Republic is trying to create an internet like China, making a big connection and then controlling it,” he says.
[ad_2]
Source link