Banned Spy Cameras from China Being Used in Pittsburgh

Even though there is a camera in everyone’s hand, most people are still wary about big brother having a camera on every street corner.

And no country is pioneering universal surveillance via camera in quite the way that China is.

That’s probably why no one really expected to see Chinese spy cameras, banned by the US government no less, on the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

But that’s exactly what is going on and it has a lot of people scratching their heads as to why this happened.

First off, the cameras were banned over worries about hacking, not because they were nefarious in and of themselves.

The possibility that they could be hacked and their information accessed by someone with such intentions, however, is of major concern to the US government and hence the ban.

As FStoppers points out, all of this is quite routine and, indeed, a bit of an arms race as countries and the companies that supply them with surveillance equipment race to keep both their technology cutting edge and their data secure.

The company in the Pittsburgh story is called Dahua and, before you think this is just overactive paranoia, this isn’t that company’s first rodeo with the press.

The company was previously in the headlines after an investigation found that its cameras were being used to obtain information from a Fortune 500 company according to FStoppers.

As the website points out, the cameras were purchased by the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office which raises questions about how that transaction was completed if these cameras are banned.

What do you think? We’d love to know your thoughts about this story – and others – in the comments section below.

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[FStoppers]