Australia's Defence Minister Richard Marles attends a joint news conference with France's Foreign and Defence ministers at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris, France, January 30, 2023. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Thursday, that his government will examine surveillance technology used in offices of the defence department, amid reports that Chinese-made cameras installed there posed a security risk.
The checks come after Britain in November asked its government departments to stop installing Chinese-linked surveillance cameras at sensitive buildings, citing security risks. Some U.S. states have banned vendors and products from several Chinese technology companies.
“This is an issue and … we’re doing an assessment of all the technology for surveillance within the defence (department) and where those particular cameras are found, they are going to be removed,” Marles told ABC Radio in an interview.
Opposition lawmaker James Paterson said his own audit had revealed almost 1,000 units of equipment by Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology (002415.SZ) and Dahua Technology Co (002236.SZ) – two partly state-owned Chinese firms – were installed across more than 250 Australian government offices.
Paterson, the shadow minister for cyber security and countering foreign interference, urged the government to urgently come up with a plan to remove all such cameras.