 “Made in China” products should carry the warning “Watching from China,” according to threat assessor Michael Lucci in an interview with Fox News. Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers agrees and is suing the Chinese firm, Lorex, accusing it of using technology the FCC banned in 2022. Lorex cameras are commonly sold by U.S. retailers ranging from Costco to Best Buy, Kohls, and Home Depot. Nebraska’s complaint accuses Lorex of using tech from Dahua, one of the companies the FCC banned after accusing it of sharing American consumers’ data with the Chinese government. So far, Lorex and other companies have managed to get around the ban by employing a popular strategy known as “white labeling,” in which products are made generically by Company A but sold under Company B’s name. India recently made a similar determination about such products, imposing stringent new security requirements on mostly Chinese-made CCTV cameras. As we wrote at the time, China’s rap sheet when it comes to using products to spy on other countries is a long one. Nowhere is this truer than in the United States, China’s largest trading partner and most persistent observer. Lorex’s cameras are frequently sold for in-home surveillance of infants and small children. But what threat could a baby monitor pose? Who cares if every gurgle and burp is captured? Consider: With video and audio monitoring, Beijing could listen in to the conversations of parents who work in the military or in intelligence agencies. Knowing when thousands of parents with such duties are being called in for a weekend or late night could, in an emergency, be priceless strategic intelligence. The device could also be within earshot of parents talking about work in a way that yields intelligence about commercial business plans or useful Washington gossip. As always, China is playing a numbers game. The PRC hoovers in vast intelligence, and then turns to AI and a vast army at the Ministry of State Security and its many consultants to winnow out useful intelligence. That is why Attorney General Hilgers calls these baby monitors a “national security issue.” Even if all Beijing has access to is Mom asking Dad to go to the kitchen for a bottle of milk, the erosion of privacy is galling. No American couple signs up to let a foreign government in their baby’s bedroom. If these concerns are accurate, then parents and families aren’t the only ones being watched. All of which also makes us queasy about the growing popularity of AI-powered children’s toys – or, perhaps, justifiably paranoid. Comments are closed.
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