Chinese companies added to Entity List for Uighur abuse role

BIS: ‘These entities have been implicated in human rights violations and abuses.’

The United States Bureau of Security and Industry (‘BIS’) has added 28 entities to its Entity List – because of their role, it says, in the perpetration of human rights abuses against members of the Uighur ethnic minority in China.

BIS said: ‘Specifically, these entities have been implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the XUAR.’

The entities include ‘the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) People’s Government Public Security Bureau, eighteen of its subordinate municipal and county public security bureaus and one other subordinate institute, and several corporations: Dahua Technology; Hikvision; IFLYTEK; Megvii Technology; SenseTime, Xiamen Meiya; Pico Information Co. Ltd.; Yitu Technologies; and Yixin Science and Technology Co. Ltd.’

On 9 October, Bloomberg news agency reported that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (‘MIT’) is, as a result of the inclusion of those companies on the entity list, reviewing a joint project with the SenseTime Group, a company that describes its mission statement as being ‘to develop AI technologies that positively contribute to economies, society and humanity.’

In a statement, SenseTime said it was ‘deeply disappointed’ by the BIS decision, adding, ‘We abide by all relevant laws and regulations of the jurisdictions in which we operate. We have been actively developing our AI code of ethics to ensure our technologies are used in a responsible way. In the meantime, we remain focused on protecting the interests of our customers, partners, investors and employees.’

Chinese entities on EAR list:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-09/chinese-ai-project-is-under-review-at-mit-after-u-s-blacklists-company