At least half of London's boroughs have bought and deployed China-made surveillance systems linked to the abuse of Uyghurs, according to data exclusively given to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, raising alarm among privacy advocates and lawmakers.
Freedom of information requests filed in late 2020 with all 32 London councils and the next 20 largest U.K. city councils found about two-thirds owned technology made by two Chinese companies accused of links to the repression of Uyghurs.
At least 28 councils owned technology made by Hikvision, the world's largest purveyor of video surveillance systems and vendor to Xinjiang police agencies, revealed data obtained by digital rights researcher Samuel Woodhams and seen exclusively by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.