(Updated Feb. 2 to include comment from Dahua Technology USA)
The world’s two largest video surveillance manufacturers, Hikvision and Dahua, will not exhibit at ISC West 2023 following a decision by the event’s producer-owner, RX (Reed Exhibitions), to bar the China-based companies from participation.
An RX spokesperson confirmed to SDM that Hikvision and Dahua would not be exhibiting at ISC West, but declined to provide any details of the decision or when the two companies were notified.
Neither company has exhibited at ISC West or ISC East since 2019. Both events were cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and hosted virtually instead. A Dahua spokesperson provided SDM the following statement when asked to respond to RX's policy:
"We make decisions about exhibiting our products at various venues based on internal business considerations and plans. To exhibit at ISC West was not part of our plan for the year."
Hikvision and Dahua have been roiled in controversy for several years as part of the United States government’s ongoing efforts to protect national security by ensuring potentially compromised technology — including communications and video surveillance equipment — is not authorized for use within U.S. borders.
For instance, in November 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted unanimously to formally implement provisions of the Secure Equipment Act of 2021 that further restricts the sale and import of products by China-based manufacturers including Hikvision and Dahua, telecommunications groups Huawei and ZTE, and two-way radio manufacturer Hytera.
Equipment designed by Hikvision and Dahua has also been implicated in human rights abuses. In 2019, the U.S. government placed almost 30 state security bureaus and tech companies in China, including Dahua, on a U.S. blacklist over concerns about their role in human rights violations.
SIA is the premier sponsor of ISC West and an integral partner in producing education and other programming at the event, which is billed as the leading comprehensive and converged security trade event in the U.S. RX blocking the companies’ participation from ISC West could, ostensibly, be viewed as supporting SIA’s previous decision to exclude Hikvision and Dahua from its own sponsored events.
In June 2021, SIA terminated Dahua’s membership citing a failure to comply with its code of ethics, specifically for being placed on the U.S. Entity List. Hikvision, despite also being included on the Entity List, retained its membership, although SIA did not provide any further comment at the time.
SIA declined to comment for this report, but did provide the following statement:
More than two years ago, SIA adopted a Code of Ethics for our members. Any exhibitor at SIA operated events should share this same commitment to this baseline for ethical behavior and exceed these principles in practice. Exhibitors at SIA events are SIA members who have indicated that they will abide by the Code. Dahua and Hikvision are not SIA members or exhibitors at SIA events.
SDM requested comment for this report from Hikvision but has received no response.
