Effective tomorrow, India will ban the sale of CCTV cameras that don’t conform to the Essential Requirements introduced by MeitY in April 2024. Major players, Hikvision and Dahua, have failed to meet the Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification standard. The government is reportedly not certifying cameras that run on Chinese-made chips.
The broader goal appears to be to tighten security standards for connected devices that are prone to unauthorized remote access and data exfiltration. Domestic brands, including CP Plus, Qubo, Prama, Matrix, and Sparsh, have already shifted their supply chain to Taiwanese options. The cost of more expensive alternative components has driven camera prices up.
Even predating this move, in 2021, the Indian Navy directed all of its units to remove Hikvision cameras. This happened after the National Security Council Secretariat and the Defence Intelligence Agency flagged a possible threat of data loss through surveillance systems of Chinese origin. It’s also worth noting that countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia have similarly restricted or banned Hikvision and Dahua from sensitive government sites over comparable security concerns.
