Shifting sands in CCTV ecosystem in India

IN March, solar-power-based, China-manufactured CCTVs — low-priced, easily available on e-commerce platforms and using 4G mobile technology to function independently — were alleged to have been used in espionage in north India by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence. From April 1, India overhauled its surveillance equipment regulations and barred Chinese companies from selling closed circuit television (CCTV) systems in the country.Under the new rules, any connected CCTV device sold in India must comply with the stringent certification standards laid out by the Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The STQC framework intends to check CCTV systems' compliance with Indian government's security and technical requirements and to ensure that the cameras are secure, trustworthy and not vulnerable to hacking or misuse.The STQC and changed rules stem from the Gazette notification issued by the Electronics Ministry in March 2024 — and released via an order from the Home Ministry — which mandate disclosure of the country of origin of key components, including chipsets and compulsory testing of devices for vulnerabilities that could enable unauthorised remote access.CCTV ecosystem — Duopoly of Chinese companies Chinese companies Hikvision and Dahua Technology enjoy a duopoly in the global CCTV industry and are thus the most impacted by the latest restrictions as their devices have become embedded in housing, retail, hospitality, banking, public infrastructure, educational and government institutions, among others. The routinisation of surveillance in daily lives, including its use in law enforcement, has further helped these Chinese companies to increase their profile and constantly expand their global reach.The growing integration of everyday physical objects — embedded with sensors, software and technology — that connect and exchange data with other objects, known as the Internet of Things (IoT), has further advanced the surveillance ecosystem and thereby, the operations of Chinese companies.Both Hikvision and Dahua were established in 2001. Hikvision's founding team consisted mostly of engineers at China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) that makes electronic products for both civilian and military uses. In 2008, Hikvision transferred 48% of its shares to CETC, turning it into the majority shareholder today. Both Hikvision and Dahua are deeply integrated with the Chinese Communist Party-state, joining hands in national policing and surveillance projects, like Sharp Eyes (xueliang gongcheng) and Skynet (tianwang gongcheng).These domestic practices have also been transferred abroad by the two Chinese companies, riding on the coattails of China's Belt and Road Initiative and allowing surveillance of citizens by states to become normalised.A story of two halves —National security and indigenisationEven though the new rules do not entail retrospective effects, some administrations and agencies in India have started replacing closed-circuit cameras of Chinese companies with Indian and other foreign ones, especially from Germany, Taiwan and the USA. Some notable examples include the removal of CCTV cameras at toll plazas by the National Highway Authority of India and the phased removal of more than 1.4 lakh cameras across Delhi. While the latter action was accompanied by political sparring between the current and previous dispensations in Delhi, the emergence of Hikvision as a major vendor is due to the company's capability to supply huge volumes at low costs. The company was even part of the vendor list of the Indian public sector defence firm, Bharat Electronics.The installation of Chinese CCTV products has always generated national security concerns in India and particularly since the conflict in Eastern Ladakh in 2020. Possible Chinese complicity in the March incident and Beijing's support for Pakistan during Operation Sindoor amplify such concerns, concerns which are not unique to India. Australia and the UK have removed Chinese CCTVs from their national defence installations, while Canada and the US have sanctioned them for providing infrastructure for the persecution of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.However, reading India's new certification rules only from the perspective of national security is only half the story. In fact, the MHA order prioritises Indian suppliers in government tenders, emphasising on manufacturing within India and the need for local value addition by trusted, compliant supply chains. Already, over the last five years, Indian companies like CP Plus, Qubo, Matrix and Sparsh have scaled up their sales by reworking their supply chains through localised firmware and Taiwanese chipsets. As a result, as of 2025, Indian companies control 80% of the Indian CCTV market. Companies like CP Plus have made sustained investments in R&D, manufacturing and supply chains and partnered with governments in urban security projects.The ability of Indian CCTV companies to scale up is a success story in the Indian government's atmanirbharta (self-sufficiency) narrative. Unlike in other sectors of manufacturing where the dependence on China is salient, the CCTV sector is low-to-mid-level technology, with less complexity. Unlike semiconductor fabs — that require high capital and have technological barriers — or solar wafers, which face deep upstream dependency, Indian firms were able to localise their software and swap the chipsets with those sourced from Taiwan and other foreign sources. The huge captive demand for CCTVs including from the public sector, low switching costs and consumers unaffected by brand prestige worked in favour of Indian companies.New Delhi's restrictions on Chinese companies and incentivisation of Indian firms is reminiscent of China's own strategy surrounding the Great Firewall — while it is a tool to censor the flow of information on the internet and restrict western companies, it also created the conditions for the growth and development of Chinese internet platforms. The alignment between security concerns and empowerment of domestic companies in this case is rather unique, dependent on the level of technology and scalability. It underscores the reality that de-coupling from China is an incremental process that varies from sector to sector.

Shifting sands in CCTV ecosystem in India

The installation of Chinese CCTV products has always generated national security concerns in India

Anand P Krishnan

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