What Happened

The Washington Post reviewed more than 100 internal PowerPoint presentations from the Chinese telecom giant Huawei that revealed the company's direct involvement in surveillance activities and efforts to sell those capabilities to governments and corporate customers, according to a 14 December Post report. These capabilities include voice recognition for national security efforts, prison monitoring and scheduling (for inmate reeducation classes) using Huawei's cloud system, location tracking using Wi- Fi or media access control address scanning for political persons of interest, facial recognition for surveillance and capture of Uyghurs in China's Xinjiang province, and behavior recognition for corporate monitoring (e.g., catching employees sleeping on the job).

Why It Matters
The Washington Post report could increase global scrutiny of Huawei in Western nations focused on Chinese human rights abuses, influence Canada's decision on using Huawei technology, and worsen prospects for the spun-off Huawei smartphone brand Honor. It also presages more scrutiny on all manner of Chinese tech firms, as shown by the 15 December Financial Times report alleging the US government was considering adding consumer drone maker DJI and facial recognition company Megvii (as well as six other Chinese companies) to an investment ban list. That same report noted that more than two dozen Chinese firms (including biotechnology companies) may soon be added to the US entity list, which led to a sell-off of Chinese health care stocks. Scrutiny of Chinese technology companies by the US government and media will only grow as stories like this surface, increasing the odds of preemptive bans on other firms