Dear Valued Partner:
On August 13, 2018, the U.S. 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (hereinafter refers to NDAA) was signed into law by President Donald Trump.
This bill was quickly drafted and passed, resulting in ambiguous interpretations of various definitions within the provisions relevant to Hikvision. The ban on U.S. federal agency procurement of Hikvision video surveillance products may or may not extend to other areas unrelated to U.S. Government contracts.
The decision by the U.S. government to approve this provision was not based on any evidence, review, or investigation of potential security risks. It represents a rejection of the U.S. government’s obligation to use a standards-based approach when evaluating security risks in federal procurement.
It also ignores Hikvision’s commitments to comply with all applicable laws and regulations and the company’s efforts to ensure the security of its products go beyond what is mandated by the U.S. government, including the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2, which is a U.S. government standard established by the Computer Security Resource Center of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
To further exemplify our commitment to transparency and compliance, Hikvision opened the Source Code Transparency Center (SCTC) in February 2018, the industry’s first-of-its-kind lab that makes available the company’s source code for law enforcement authorities and government agencies in the U.S. and Canada for review.
Moreover, we want to be clear: security and transparency are our top priorities and part of our long-standing commitment to you. Hikvision has engaged external legal counsel to analyze the NDAA language. That analysis is currently underway. As soon as we can provide guidance, we will get that information out to you.
Finally, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of you for trusting, understanding and supporting Hikvision.