February 10, 2023
Defence Minister Richard Marles has ordered his department to investigate and remove almost 1000 Chinese Communist Party linked surveillance cameras and other recording devices on Australian government buildings.
The review comes after The Australian revealed at least 913 cameras, intercoms, electronic entry systems and video recorders developed and operated by controversial Chinese companies Hikvision and Dahua were operating at 250 sites.
The sites include sensitive agencies such as Defence, Foreign Affairs and the Attorney-General’s Department.
Mr Marles said he believed the spyware was in operation under the previous government but that it was important Australian facilities were “completely secure”.
“I don’t think we should overstate it, but I think it is right to be doing the assessment and making sure that we deal with it,” Mr Marles told the ABC.
“And that’s what we’re going to do. I mean, it’s a significant thing that’s been brought to our attention, and we’re going to fix it. It’s obviously been there, I might say, for some time and predates us coming into office.
“But that said, it’s important that we go through this exercise and make sure that our facilities are completely secure.”
Anthony Albanese on Thursday rebuffed concern there could be retaliation from Beijing over the move, and reiterated that Labor was acting in the national interest.
The response comes after the former Coalition government faced backlash from China when it banned Chinese-owned communications companies Huawei and ZTE from Australia’s 5G network.
“We act in accordance with Australia’s national interest,” Mr Albanese said in Canberra. “We do so transparently and that’s what we’ll continue to do.”
Opposition spokesman on cyber security James Paterson uncovered the spyware after he conducted a six-month audit of every commonwealth department.
He launched the audit after the Department of Home Affairs was unable to advise how many devices were installed in government buildings.
Senator Paterson’s audit found the Department of Climate Change and Energy had 154 of the devices operating at 32 sites, while Treasury had 115 and the Department of Social Services 138. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet had none.
Senator Paterson on Thursday said he was unsure whether CCP-linked spyware had been installed in Parliament House, with the Department of Parliamentary Services yet to respond to his inquiry.
“There have been a number of vulnerabilities identified in these products in the past where remote users could gain full control of them – switch on the camera, switch on the audio, for example,” he said. “The other thing that’s most important about these companies – like Huawei who we banned from our 5G network – they are beholden to the Chinese Communist Party.”
Australia’s Five Eyes and AUKUS partners in Washington and London moved together to ban or restrict the installation of devices supplied by Hikvision and Dahua, which are both operated by the CCP.
The review comes after the Australian War Memorial announced it would remove about a dozen Chinese-made surveillance cameras amid concern the data could be fed back to Beijing.
Newly appointed chairman Kim Beazley said this week the organisation was acting out of “an abundance of caution” and that the cameras – manufactured by Hikvision – would be removed by mid-2023.
