‘Security threat’ China-cams swamp Tasmanian state parliament

Tasmania’s parliament, its offices and surrounds are monitored by Chinese Hikvision cameras, with presiding officers ignoring repeated warnings.

Tasmanian Greens leader Cassy O'Connor says concerns about Hikvision cameras in state parliamentary offices and grounds were ignored. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Tasmania’s parliament, its offices and surrounds are monitored by Chinese Hikvision cameras, with presiding officers ignoring repeated warnings about human rights and potential “significant” security implications.

The Australian has obtained correspondence confirming the widespread presence of the cameras throughout Tasmania’s parliamentary precinct.

It reveals the House of Assembly Speaker and Legislative Council president dismissed concerns about their expansion in 2020, saying they were no different to MPs owning Chinese-made iPhones.

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor, a staunch critic of the Chinese Communist Party, said the parliament should finally listen to concerns and remove the cameras. “Clearly, these cameras should go,” she said.

“If the Australian War Memorial can see sense in ripping out Hikvision cameras, so should the Tasmanian parliament – and every other public building in our democracy that has deployed them, mostly because they are cheap. It is telling … that democratic governments in the US, the UK and the EU have either banned or are removing, Hikvision cameras for security reasons. There are legitimate security questions here, and Hikvision cameras are an instrument of oppression in places like Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. They should not be supported by any democratic institution.”

Ms O’Connor raised the alarm about Hikvision CCTV cameras – which on Thursday the Albanese government ordered removed from all Defence Department property – in July 2020.

Writing to then-Speaker Sue Hickey (independent) and LegCo president Craig Farrell (Labor), she expressed “significant security and ethical concerns” about the use of the cameras and their expansion to cover the parliament lawns.

The lawns, at the front of state parliament, are the state’s most popular site for protests, including by Tibetans and others concerned about China’s oppression of ethnic minorities.

In her letter, Ms O’Connor warned Hikvision spyware was the Chinese government’s “supplier of choice in occupied Tibet and Xinjiang” and quoted cyber security experts saying its cameras could “inadvertently contribute to Chinese espionage activity”.

These concerns were noted but dismissed, with the two presiding officers saying Hikvision cameras were a “closed system … inaccessible to any third party. “The security risk is considered extremely low,” they said.

Ms Hickey on Thursday said she was “acting on official advice”. Mr Farrell and current Speaker Mark Sheldon on Thursday refused to answer questions, including on whether the cameras would be removed.

Hikvision strongly denies its products pose any security risk and insists it has no access to end-users’ video data. However, ASIO director-general Mike Burgess has said he and his agency were “greatly concerned” about where data collected by Hikvision cameras could “end up”.