February 14, 2023
Forty-two suspected Chinese-made cameras have been stripped out of Defence sites across Australia, including from highly sensitive locations such as the submarine base at HMAS Stirling, the Air Warfare Centre at RAAF Base Edinburgh, and the home of Australia’s Special Air Service Regiment, the Campbell Barracks.
At least one of the cameras appeared to have stayed in place, or been reinstalled, despite being publicly revealed in 2018, when the Coalition was in government.
The decommissioning of the cameras comes after an audit of every Australian government department found as many as 1000 cameras and other devices made by Chinese Communist Party-linked companies Hikvision and Dahua had been installed at government sites.
The audit was launched by opposition cyber security spokesman James Paterson after two of Australia’s Five-Eyes intelligence partners, the US and Britain, moved to ban or severely restrict the devices late last year, citing security concerns.
The US and Britain are also part of the AUKUS alliance that will deliver nuclear submarines to Australia, making the discovery of one suspect device at HMAS Stirling in Perth more alarming.
Defence located 19 cameras or other devices supplied by one of the two Chinese-headquartered companies at RAAF base Richmond. One camera was also found at the Defence Science and Technology Group base in Adelaide.
The devices were uncovered as the Department of Defence scrambled to answer Senator Paterson’s questions, with Defence conducting a physical assessment to see whether other unregistered devices exist on Defence property.
Seventeen Defence sites across Australia were found to be monitored by the cameras, ranging from the Anglesea Barracks in Hobart to the Robertson Barracks in Darwin.
The final device found was at the Campbell Barracks in Swanbourne, in Perth.
Twenty-three of the Defence cameras were still operating in December, but the last of them – at Campbell Barracks – was decommissioned early this month.
The 913 cameras, intercoms, electronic entry points and other surveillance devices located across Australian government buildings are considered suspect because any company headquartered in China is subject to China’s National Intelligence Law 2017, which requires companies to hand over data upon request to China’s intelligence agencies.
The US first moved to ban Hikvision and Dahua devices as early as 2018, and signed off on laws in 2020 further restricting the devices.
At the time, the Coalition was in government here but does not appear to have moved to strip the devices out of sensitive sites.
Bizarrely, the ABC discovered a camera at HMAS Edinburgh in 2018, leading Defence chiefs to say publicly the camera had been removed. It is not clear whether it was never removed, reinstalled, or if a new one was installed.
Defence Minister Richard Marles last week pledged to decommission all cameras on Defence sites, saying it was a “significant thing’’ that had been brought to his attention.
His comments triggered a warning from China through Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning in Beijing.
“We oppose erroneous practices of overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to discriminate against and suppress Chinese companies,” she said.
“We hope the Australian side will provide a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for the normal operation of Chinese companies and do more things that could contribute to mutual trust and co-operation between our two countries.”
Senator Paterson has acknowledged several cameras were in place during the Coalition period.
Hikvision and Dahua deny any involvement in cyber espionage.
