“Genetec´s CEO Pierre Racz’s recent comments in an interview with Detektor Magazine, mimic an American blogger site (John Honovich, IPVM.com, publisher’s note), whose sole business goal appears to be instilling fear, uncertainty and doubt about Hikvision because it is a Chinese company.

The Genetec leader’s rants about war, espionage and treachery are certainly worthy of a Hollywood tabloid, but security professionals and integrators can see through Pierre Racz’s fear-mongering. They notice that Racz provides vague accusations and outrageous claims.

"Governments are concerned “

In the interview with Detektor Magazine, Pierre Racz proclaims that “governments have told us they are extremely concerned with the origin of these [Hikvision] products.” Racz does not specify which governments are concerned, but those governments must have their proverbial heads in the proverbial sand, because there are no secrets about the origins of Hikvision products. All Hikvision products are proudly “Made in China.”

Hikvision products are manufactured, inspected and tested in world-class factories in Hangzhou, China, a city that Westerners often refer to as the “Silicon Valley of China.” Hikvision regularly hosts security integrators and security professionals from the West and all over the globe for tours of our factories. Our visitors are interested to see our industry-leading cybersecurity best practices at work, and how we continually increase efficiency by using robots and other sophisticated processes, and they’re also interested in witnessing the sheer scale of our operation.

Chinese government access

Genetec’s leader regurgitates insinuations about Hikvision products providing access to the Chinese government. This claim is absurd. There is no motive for a commercial company to provide access to a government, whether it’s an American, Swedish or Chinese company. Hikvision has sold tens of millions of network-connected devices—IP cameras and NVRs—that sit on the Internet. There is no report anywhere that such access has taken place. Any claim otherwise is just hogwash.

Furthermore, anyone who knows anything about technology and engineering understands that these arguments are laughable. Interestingly, the Genetec leader appears to lack both understanding of how the systems work, and he appears to have very little respect for the infosec professionals who protect their companies.

A video surveillance system is comprised of front-end devices, backend devices, network devices and a system platform. This is where the CISOs and other infosec professionals come in. If any change is made to an edge device – like a camera – it would immediately be detected by the network devices and security platforms.

False claims

Pierre Racz is fabricating disinformation about Hikvision’sownership and financing. He says that Hikvision is “owned by the government and has been given a $6 billion subsidy.”

These claims are false, misleading, and irresponsible. Hikvision is a publicly traded company, listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. As of 30 September 2016, our shareholders include government entities (42 percent of our stock is held by two state-owned enterprises). Major stockholders include a Hong Kong businessman, and common-shares investors, including international institutional investors. UBS AG and JP Morgan are among Hikvision’s top 10 shareholders.

A loan is not a subsidy

Also, the subsidy myth has been debunked repeatedly. Like other major corporations, Hikvision uses different types of financing channels such as an IPO, bank credit facilities and bond issuances.

Hikvision in August 2016 closed a credit facility of more than $3 billion, with the Export-Import Bank of China. In November 2015, Hikvision secured approximately $3 billion line of credit with the China Development Bank.

These are lines of credit. If and when Hikvision takes a loan on a credit line, the entire amount must be repaid with interest. It is not a subsidy or free gift. It works the same way as the other lines of credit that Hikvision has with other international financial institutions including Citibank, HSBC and Deutsche Bank, among others.

Genetec also makes assertions that Hikvision is not a commercial entity or is somehow not interested in commercial success. We are the world’s leading video surveillance provider with extremely strong growth. Our preliminary 2016 financial results, released last week show year-over-year overall revenues increased 26 percent and overall profits increased 24 per cent”.

Keen Yao

VP of Hikvision International Business Center

Want to read more about cyber security and video surveillance? Read the latest issue of Detektor International online: click here