WASHINGTON —
IPVM, a U.S.-based security and surveillance industry research group, says the Chinese surveillance equipment maker Dahua is selling cameras with what it calls a "skin color analytics" feature in Europe, raising human rights concerns.
In a report released on July 31, IPVM said "the company defended the analytics as being a 'basic feature of a smart security solution.'" The report is behind a paywall, but IPVM provided a copy to VOA Mandarin.
Dahua's ICC Open Platform guide for "human body characteristics" includes "skin color/complexion," according to the report. In what Dahua calls a "data dictionary," the company says that the "skin color types" that Dahua analytic tools would target are "yellow," "black," and "white." VOA Mandarin verified this on Dahua's Chinese website.
The IPVM report also says that skin color detection is mentioned in the "Personnel Control" category, a feature Dahua touts as part of its Smart Office Park solution intended to provide security for large corporate campuses in China.
Charles Rollet, co-author of the IPVM report, told VOA Mandarin by phone on August 1, "Basically what these video analytics do is that, if you turn them on, then the camera will automatically try and determine the skin color of whoever passes, whoever it captures in the video footage.
"So that means the camera is going to be guessing or attempting to determine whether the person in front of it … has black, white or yellow — in their words — skin color," he added.
VOA Mandarin contacted Dahua for comment but did not receive a response.
The IPVM report said that Dahua is selling cameras with the skin color analytics feature in three European nations. Each has a recent history of racial tension: Germany, France and the Netherlands.
Dahua said its skin tone analysis capability was an essential function in surveillance technology.
In a statement to IPVM, Dahua said, "The platform in question is entirely consistent with our commitments to not build solutions that target any single racial, ethnic, or national group. The ability to generally identify observable characteristics such as height, weight, hair and eye color, and general categories of skin color is a basic feature of a smart security solution."
IPMV said the company has previously denied offering the mentioned feature, and color detection is uncommon in mainstream surveillance tech products.
In many Western nations, there has long been a controversy over errors due to skin color in surveillance technologies for facial recognition. Identifying skin color in surveillance applications raises human rights and civil rights concerns.
"So it's unusual to see it for skin color because it's such a controversial and ethically fraught field," Rollet said.
Anna Bacciarelli, technology manager at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told VOA Mandarin that Dahua technology should not contain skin tone analytics.
"All companies have a responsibility to respect human rights, and take steps to prevent or mitigate any human rights risks that may arise as a result of their actions," she said in an email.
"Surveillance software with skin tone analytics poses a significant risk to the right to equality and non-discrimination, by allowing camera owners and operators to racially profile people at scale — likely without their knowledge, infringing privacy rights — and should simply not be created or sold in the first place."
Dahua denied that its surveillance products are designed to enable racial identification. of its U.S. company, Dahua says, "contrary to allegations that have been made by certain media outlets, Dahua Technology has not and never will develop solutions targeting any specific ethnic group."
However, in February 2021, IPVM and the reported that Dahua provided a video surveillance system with "real-time Uyghur warnings" to the Chinese police that included eyebrow size, skin color and ethnicity.
IPVM's 2018 statistical report shows that since 2016, Dahua and another Chinese video surveillance company, Hikvision, have won contracts worth $1 billion from the government of China's Xinjiang province, a center of Uyghur life.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission determined in 2022 that the products of Chinese technology companies such as Dahua and Hikvision, which has close ties to Beijing, posed a threat to U.S. national security.
The of these companies' products in the U.S. "for the purpose of public safety, security of government facilities, physical security surveillance of critical infrastructure, and other national security purposes," but not for other purposes.