Thousands of pieces of Chinese video surveillance equipment that have provoked national security concerns have been listed for sale on an online superstore catering to U.S. government agencies, despite a ban that went into effect this week.
The use of equipment made by Hikvision on U.S. military installations, police departments and embassies has sparked concern about security vulnerabilities in the equipment that the Chinese government might exploit.
Congress last year passed legislation that prohibits federal government agencies from buying equipment from Chinese companies including Hikvision, Dahua and communications equipment provider Huawei Technologies Co. The ban took effect Aug. 13.
The GSA spokeswoman said the agency tries to prevent Chinese equipment from appearing on the site, but said the onus of making sure that products listed for sale complied with government rules lay with resellers.
The resellers offering the equipment for sale are often small businesses that act as middlemen between the government agencies buying the equipment and distributors that fulfill the orders.
Tera Consulting Inc., one of the vendors listing suspect surveillance gear on the GSA site, relied on its distributors to provide accurate information about products and put that data on the GSA Advantage site, according to a company official.
Jim Wrigglesworth, the vice president of Wrigglesworth Enterprises in Wilmington, N.C., another company that offered such Chinese equipment for sale, said it lists more than 1 million products on the GSA site, so some errors were possible.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/suspect-chinese-surveillance-gear-offered-for-sale-to-u-s-government-11565962437?mod=hp_lista_pos2
The use of equipment made by Hikvision on U.S. military installations, police departments and embassies has sparked concern about security vulnerabilities in the equipment that the Chinese government might exploit.
Congress last year passed legislation that prohibits federal government agencies from buying equipment from Chinese companies including Hikvision, Dahua and communications equipment provider Huawei Technologies Co. The ban took effect Aug. 13.
The GSA spokeswoman said the agency tries to prevent Chinese equipment from appearing on the site, but said the onus of making sure that products listed for sale complied with government rules lay with resellers.
The resellers offering the equipment for sale are often small businesses that act as middlemen between the government agencies buying the equipment and distributors that fulfill the orders.
Tera Consulting Inc., one of the vendors listing suspect surveillance gear on the GSA site, relied on its distributors to provide accurate information about products and put that data on the GSA Advantage site, according to a company official.
Jim Wrigglesworth, the vice president of Wrigglesworth Enterprises in Wilmington, N.C., another company that offered such Chinese equipment for sale, said it lists more than 1 million products on the GSA site, so some errors were possible.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/suspect-chinese-surveillance-gear-offered-for-sale-to-u-s-government-11565962437?mod=hp_lista_pos2
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