BREAKING: Uyghur students in a major PRC city are *all* being tracked by a police "anti-terrorism" system which automatically flags "abnormal behaviors" such as "gathering at religious centers" via @ipvideo ipvm.com/reports/hangzh… For only $23k a PRC AI company () has been contracted to build a "management and control platform" for "Uyghur students in colleges and universities" chinaoly.com

BREAKING: Hikvision won a 'Smart Campus' project in China that "automatically sends an alert" on ethnic minority students "suspected of fasting during Ramadan" based on "dining records of such students"
via @ipvideoipvm.com/reports/hikvis… Hikvision confirmed it won the project, but claims - without evidence - that it never developed/deployed the Ramadan warnings s.ipvm.com/uploads/987c/e…

NEW: Hikvision is blaming an 'employee error' for offering "ethnic minority" recognition technology in its latest software...

But questions remain about whether Hikvision has ever actually canceled the technology, as it insists.🧵


via @ipvideoipvm.com/reports/hikvis… Last month @ipvideo showed live Hikvision software offering users tech that purports to detect "whether they are an ethnic minority" (是否少数民族)


This directly contradicts Hikvision's claims to have removed and cancelled this kind of tech in 2018. ipvm.com/reports/hikvis…

NEW: Hikvision's AI software can identify Uyghurs and is powered by @nvidia hardware, according to a recent PRC surveillance contract.

Hikvision claims it removed ethnic minority recognition tech five years ago.

via @ipvideo https://t.co/kYZAvxV21Mipvm.com/reports/hikvis…
The Hikvision AI software can detect "Whether ethnic minority: unknown, non-minority, Uyghur" (是否少数民族:未知、非少数民族、维族).

This software requires a server with "no less than eight" @NVIDIA T4 GPUs to run.

https://t.co/MGki8j989xs.ipvm.com/uploads/embedd…

BREAKING: Protest signs and protestors' faces are automatically reported to PRC police thanks to an AI system touted by Dahua, a huge Chinese video surveillance manufacturer. Dahua calls this solution a "banner_alarm" ipvm.com/reports/dahua-… via @ipvideo @ipvideo "in the designated area, if a person holding a banner is detected and lasts for a certain period of time, an alarm will be generated"

指定区域内，检测到人举横幅且持续一定时间则产生报警 twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

BREAKING: Chinese police in Shanghai are building a surveillance system that alerts them every time a foreign journalist tries to visit Xinjiang ipvm.com/reports/shangh… via @ipvideo Here's the PRC police tender found by @ipvideo which details this system. It automatically notifies police every time "foreign journalists living in China" buy flight or train tickets to #Xinjiang.
s.ipvm.com/uploads/embedd…

BREAKING: Hikvision's human rights investigator admits the company's Chinese police contracts in #Xinjiang explicitly target Uyghurs as a group.

"You know, saying 'we wanted to monitor the Uyghur population'... maybe, [you] should say, 'well, wait a minute, not the population… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… @BethanyAllenEbr has covered this in an excellent @axios article as well axios.com/2023/04/17/hik…

BREAKING: Douyin, TikTok's sister app in China, comprehensively bans pro-LGBT content. Douyin even took down a photo of two men kissing for promoting "unhealthy and non-mainstream views on marriage and love" ipvm.com/reports/douyin… via @ipvideo Here's the post Douyin censored for "not following [Douyin] Community Rules" (内容不符合社区规则) because it "has possible involvement with promoting non-mainstream views on marriage and love" (当前作品可能涉及宣扬非主流的婚恋观等内容)
douyin.com/search/%E9%9D%…

"Yes, that's right": Dahua confirmed its cameras offer race analytics - such as detection of "non-Han Chinese people" - in a phone call with an @RFA_Chinese reporter posing as a customer ipvm.com/reports/radio-…

@ipvideo obtained the call in full and examines it here RFA asked a Dahua sales manager - Mr. Gong - if Dahua cameras can recognize racial and ethnic characteristics. Gong confirmed "indeed there is".

RFA then asked about detecting non-Han Chinese people: "is this technology capable of this?"

"Yes, that's right" said Dahua

BREAKING: Dahua, the world's second largest security camera manufacturer, lists AI-powered cameras on its own website that can detect "race", "skin color", and even "Xinjiang/Tibet" (!) facial features ipvm.com/reports/dahua-… via @ipvideo The DH-IPC-HF8249F-FD face detection camera includes "face attribute extraction" (人脸属性提取); among these face attributes are "race" (人种) and "Xinjiang/Tibet (Custom Support Required)" 疆藏 (需定制支持): perma.cc/346E-JE9D

BREAKING: Hikvision sells an interrogation solution for Chinese prisons which records interrogation sessions and automatically prints transcripts for detainees shackled in metal 'tiger chairs' to sign on the spot ipvm.com/reports/hikvis… via @ipvideo the device also monitors detainees' vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate, etc) while alarming if any "vigorous movements" are detected

.@ipvideo/@Axios scoop: in 2019 the US sanctioned SenseTime, China's largest AI firm, over Uyghur repression. But SenseTime says the sanctions have not had "any material adverse impact" thanks to a legal loophole ipvm.com/reports/senset… read @lachlan's article for @Axios on this as well axios.com/chinese-tech-f…

Scoop for @ipvideo: a facial recognition professor in Australia breached core ethics standards in a paper that improved Uyghur "ethnicity recognition" techniques, abruptly resigning

He now teaches AI at a top PRC university ipvm.com/reports/eth-re… The study took pics of 300 Uyghur, Tibetan, and Korean PRC students to find the best 'face region' for 'ethnicity recognition'

The paper was published in 2018 as PRC police and surveillance companies ramped up 'Uyghur alarm' security camera systems across the country

NEW: Hikvision is refusing to respond to pointed questions from the UK's Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner (@BSCCommissioner) such as "whether your camera technology has in fact been used in the Uyghur internment camps" ipvm.com/reports/hik-uk… via @ipvideo @BSCCommissioner also asked Hik - a major UK #videosurveillance provider - "whether you accept that basic premise, namely that crimes are being committed against the Uyghurs" & whether Hik had "knowledge of the use(s) of its surveillance camera systems in the internment" camps?

new for @ipvideo: a law firm hired by Hikvision concluded it did not "knowingly or intentionally" abuse human rights in Xinjiang.

But evidence shows Hikvision knows exactly what it's doing, as it directly built & operates 5 huge Xinjiang police projects

ipvm.com/reports/arent-…

As part of doing business in China, Airbnb allows hosts to ban Uyghur guests. Not banning specific people - literally, *any Uyghur person* wired.co.uk/article/airbnb…

this is the same company recently touting its "allyship" of the AAPI community

https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/1380234749361459205

imagine Airbnb banning black guests in 1950s Alabama or 1980s South Africa. they are doing the same thing now in China with little to no controversy.

breaking from @ipvideo & @latimes: the world's second-largest security camera manufacturer (@DahuaHQ) provides Chinese police "real-time Uyghur warnings" & tracks "Uyghurs with hidden terrorist inclinations"

Dahua has a USA HQ in Irvine & reportedly sold Amazon $10m of cameras for Dahua's flagship 'Smart Police' solution, Heart of City, "real-time Uyghur warnings" are included and security cameras are required to "support reporting Uyghur [face] attributes" to police

new: @AlibabaGroup openly offers Uyghur alerts as a service on @alibaba_cloud, allowing customers to be alerted any time Alibaba detects a Uyghur in video or images. via @ipvideo here is @ipvideo's full report ipvm.com/reports/alibab…

and here is Alibaba API guide showing Alibaba offering Uyghur detection perma.cc/9ZUV-UD2F

Alibaba deleted it after it was contacted for comment

.@Huawei and @Megvii worked together to test and validate 'Uyghur alarms' in facial recognition software, per a document found by @ipvideo here is @ipvideo's full article on the document which describes Uyghur alarms as a 'basic function' ipvm.com/reports/huawei…