More than a third of police forces are using equipment from companies that pose a national security risk, according to the surveillance watchdog.
Fraser Sampson, the biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner, described the use of Chinese technology as “digital asbestos” as he raised the alarm about police using CCTV cameras, drones and other technology from companies with close links to the country’s government.
He said their deployment in sensitive areas, from custody suites to nuclear power sites, raised serious questions about whether the British public wanted “untrusted companies and equipment watching us”.
Sampson told The Times: “I’d liken this situation to digital asbestos because these systems have been widely installed by a previous generation with proper motives, largely on the basis that they were cheap
