Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The research group from the United States (US) IPVM accused the company providing surveillance equipment from China, Hikivision, of having a special contract with Xi Jinping’s government.
Hikivision is said to have developed special technology to detect Muslim students fasting during Ramadan in China.
According to the IPVM report, Hikivision technology will collect mealtime recording data from Muslim students in China.
Hikivision confirmed on its LinkedIn page that it had indeed won the tender for a technology. However, the company denied that the technology could analyze videos to identify ethnic minorities.
“This project has never been involved in being developed or utilized to violate human rights,” said Hikivision, quoted from TheRegisterWednesday (15/11/2023).
The project won by Hikivison is worth US$ 9 million to develop the ‘Smart Campus’ concept at Minjiang University, Fujian province. The contract is finalized in December 2022.
In the 600-page tender document, there is a system called ‘”Ethnic Minority Student Aid Analysis” which is intended to support the “decision making” of campus management.
According to IPVM, there is a feature that will alert campus management when a student is suspected of fasting.
Furthermore, in the tender document seen by IPVM, the Smart Campus project has a feature to provide several other data to campus management.
This data includes daily needs such as habits of borrowing books from the library, holiday destinations, passport usage, student club activities and family members.
However, it has not been revealed what the real motive was for detecting Muslim students in China who were fasting.
So far, China has often been accused of violating human rights for minority groups, for example in its treatment of ethnic minority workers and even detention.
Several government employees have also been banned from fasting. Civil servants and teachers in the Muslim-majority province of Xinjiang also said they had received orders prohibiting fasting.
Last July, Hikivision was accused of winning a tender from the Chinese government to identify the Uyghur Muslim community. The project is said to have a value of US$ 6 million.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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