FCC Blocks First Gadgets Over 'Foreign Surveillance Chips'

The chip at issue is a HiVision Hi3516CV610 UHD Smart Vision SoC, which turns a raw camera sensor into a home security camera, a dashcam or a similar device. Listings viewed by The Verge on AliExpress show the chip is often sold as a package with a Sony camera sensor and sometimes with a lens already on board.

The FCC calls it a foreign surveillance chip because HiVision advertises it as “designed for the surveillance market” with “built in detection algorithms for human faces,” according to the agency. HiVision is a subsidiary of Huawei, one of the first telecom companies the U.S. government decided to call a national security risk.

Huawei is on the FCC’s Covered List. The FCC’s new authority is meant to close a loophole under which companies could put products from banned companies inside another company’s gadgets, The Verge reported. The agency has given itself similar powers to retroactively ban gadgets and to block modular radio transmitters.

The Verge raised the question of whether the FCC is keeping people safer or picking winners and losers while making a show of enforcement. It said it had asked the agency many times to discuss its efforts, but the agency would not engage.