Building infrastructure for African human genomic data management

Posted on November 11, 2019 By Shawn Douglas Journal articles

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IPVM
Type of businessCorporation
Type of site
Investigative journalism, technology journalism
Available inEnglish
Founded2008; 16 years ago (2008)
HeadquartersBethlehem, Pennsylvania,
United States
Country of originUnited States
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)John Honovich
PresidentJohn Honovich
CEOJohn Honovich
IndustryClosed-circuit television, access control
ServicesProduct testing
ParentIP Video Market Info Inc.
URLipvm.com
AdvertisingNo
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
Launched2008
Current statusLive
[1][2][3]

Internet Protocol Video Market (IPVM) is a security and surveillance industry research group and trade publication based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania that focuses on reviewing and reporting on video-surveillance technology.[1][4][5][6]

IPVM was launched in 2008 out of Hawaii, when founder John Honovich had left the surveillance industry after becoming disillusioned with what he described as "overstated marketing claims" that pervaded the industry.[5][6] Soon after launching, IPVM's headquarters moved to Pennsylvania, where most of its employees were living.[5] The website began as a news aggregator, though the company would grow to produce original investigations and conduct its own reviews of surveillance equipment. Throughout most of its history, the publication's readership and reach has been specific to the surveillance industry.[6]

IPVM gained broader recognition in 2020 and 2021 for its investigative reporting revealing how PRC-based technology firms Alibaba,[4][7][8] Dahua Technology,[9][10] Huawei[9][11][12] and Megvii[9][10] filed patents for face detection technology designed to target Uyghurs. The company's investigations on surveillance equipment used in China have been widely cited by major newspapers in the United States, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.[6] Its reports have drawn the ire of Chinese video surveillance equipment company Hikvision, whom IPVM revealed to have been providing surveillance equipment and technology key in the mass internment of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.[13] China has been critical of the company, blocking the company's website within Great Firewall,[6] while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China has denied the validity of IPVM's work relating to Huawei, claiming it was "slander".[14] In 2023 and 2024, respectively, IPVM reporting was cited by the U.S. Department of State in its Xinjiang 2022 International Religious Freedom Report and by the Select Committee on the CCP in a report on how U.S. venture capital aids the Chinese Communist Party.[15][16]

Unlike many trade publications focused on the surveillance industry, IPVM does not accept advertising from manufacturers of surveillance technology, owing to its founder's concern around the potential for advertisers to affect the publication's editorial independence.[6] Instead, the privately-owned website runs on a subscription-based model; as of January 2020, IPVM said that it maintained over 10,000 subscribers.[5]

History

IPVM was launched in 2008 out of Hawaii, when founder John Honovich had left the surveillance industry after becoming disillusioned with what he described as "overstated marketing claims" that pervaded the industry.[17][5][6] Soon after launching, IPVM's headquarters moved to Pennsylvania, where most of its employees were living.[5] The website began as a news aggregator, though the company would grow to produce original investigations and conduct its own reviews of surveillance equipment.[6] However, the publication would begin to gain notoriety more broadly following its investigations into Chinese surveillance firms.[6] After publishing reports critical of Chinese video surveillance firms Hikvision and Dahua Technology, the Chinese government blocked IPVM behind its Great Firewall on October 19, 2018.[6][18] Reporters Without Borders subsequently condemned the Chinese government’s decision.[18]

In December 2019, IPVM would move again, leaving its headquarters in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania for a 12,000 square feet (1,100 m2) research facility in the residential Miller Heights neighborhood Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The new location allows IPVM to conduct on-site video surveillance hardware and software tests on products from a variety of leading video surveillance manufacturers.[5] In March 2021, the Journal of Biomedical Optics published a study by five IPVM researchers and a U.S. military medical service officer on the problems with COVID-19 fever screening devices. The study was funded by IPVM and was conducted at the new facility.[19]

In 2023, Time recognized John Honovich, IPVM’s founder, as one of the 100 Most Influential People in AI, citing IPVM as “a leading source of information on the harms of facial-recognition technology” as well as the organization’s influence on U.S. policy.[20]

China technology companies' involvement in the persecution of Uyghurs

Further information: Persecution of Uyghurs in China

In May 2021, the BBC aired Are You Scared Yet, Human?, a Panorama documentary featuring an interview with IPVM on Dahua Technology's, Hikvision's, and Huawei's roles in developing mass surveillance technologies in China, including technological products designed to identify Uyghurs.[21] In September 2021, IPVM presented an expert statement to the Uyghur Tribunal in the United Kingdom.[22][23]

In 2022, IPVM, in association with Ethan Gutmann from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and Bob Fu from ChinaAid, among others, helped Ovalbek Turdakun, a Kyrgyz Christian Xinjiang internment camps survivor, escape to the United States,[24] where he was granted significant public benefit parole.[25][26] Turdakun gave first-person witness testimony about his alleged detention during an April press conference led by IPVM's Conor Healy and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.[24]

In 2023, IPVM obtained a Hikvision private meeting recording during which Pierre-Richard Prosper, who had been hired by Hikvision to investigate its ties to human rights abuses in Xinjiang, said his team was “not going to absolve” Hikvision and that the company had bid on Chinese government contracts that targeted Uyghurs as a group.[27] The Register later reported that IPVM found that Hikvision and Nvidia had been retained by Chengmai County authorities as recently as December 2022 to provide Uyghur-identifying technologies.[28]

Joint investigations

In 2020, The Washington Post and IPVM jointly reported on Huawei's testing of facial recognition technology designed to identify Uyghurs.[29][30]

In 2021, IPVM partnered with TechCrunch to examine U.S. local governments' purchases and U.S. retailers' sales of surveillance equipment manufactured by companies linked to abuses of Uyghurs[31][32] as well as with The Intercept to investigate the U.S. military's purchase of sanctioned cameras for the U.S. embassy in Caracas.[33]

In 2022, IPVM partnered with the MIT Technology Review to examine an Israeli company's plan to develop DNA-based facial recognition[34] and was cited in an ESPN exposé on Brooklyn Nets owner Joseph Tsai discussing Alibaba's, Megvii's and SenseTime's Uyghur-targeting software.[35]

In 2023, the BBC cited IPVM in its reporting on shortcomings with Evolv’s AI weapons scanners.[36] [37]

Reaction

Evolv

In March 2024, Evolv, a publicly traded Massachusetts-based security and technology company contemporaneously under investigation by the FTC and the SEC,[38] issued a press release criticizing IPVM as a “biased” “tabloid publication” that has published “inaccurate and misleading coverage.”[39]

Hikvision

In July 2021, Hikvision resigned its membership in the Security Industry Association, a U.S.-based trade association, citing in its resignation letter that it had been "harassed and maligned" by IPVM.[40][41][42] Hikvision further claimed that IPVM had engaged in "unethical hacking" of its cameras and that IPVM had published "misleading blog stories."[40][41][42]

In January 2022, Axios reported that Hikvision had asked U.S. congressional ethics officials to investigate potential lobbying disclosure violations by IPVM.[43] U.S. senator Marco Rubio and congresswoman Claudia Tenney retweeted the Axios article,[44][45] urging their congressional colleagues to ignore Hikvision while claiming that Hikvision's accusations against IPVM amounted to censorship.[44][45][46]

Chinese state media

In November 2021, Global Times, a tabloid under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party, published an article by Gao Lei writing under the pen name 耿直哥,[47] or Candid Brother, to its Baidu[48] and WeChat[49] accounts criticizing IPVM as a U.S. government mouthpiece parading as a civilian company. Lei also compared IPVM founder John Honovich to German anthropologist Adrian Zenz and claimed that another IPVM employee is "a rather extreme white right-winger."[48][49]

In January 2022, China Daily, a Chinese Communist Party-owned newspaper, published an article and a video noting IPVM's work with the BBC, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Washington Post, criticizing it as a "mass surveillance company" that has "been sharing tons of data they have collected on Xinjiang and on other Chinese entities."[50]

References

  1. ^ a b Salamone, Anthony (2020-01-02). "Who's watching those who monitor us with video surveillance? A Lehigh Valley company, that's who". The Morning Call. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  2. ^ "Privacy Policy". IPVM. 2021-08-25. Retrieved 2021-10-26. Company (referred to as either "the Company", "We", "Us" or "Our" in this Agreement) refers to IP Video Market Info Inc., 3713 Linden St, Bethlehem, PA 18020.
  3. ^ "IP VIDEO MARKET INFO INC". Hawaii Business Express. Business Registration Division, Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. Retrieved 2021-11-02. HONOVICH, JOHN CEO/P/D
  4. ^ a b "Alibaba says its technology won't target Uighurs". BBC. 2020-12-18. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Salamone, Anthony (2 January 2022). "Who's watching those who monitor us with video surveillance? A Lehigh Valley company, that's who". The Morning Call.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j McLaughlin, Timothy (29 September 2022). "The Tech Site That Took On China's Surveillance State". The Atlantic.
  7. ^ Zhong, Raymond (2020-12-16). "As China Tracked Muslims, Alibaba Showed Customers How They Could, Too". The New York Times. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  8. ^ Davidson, Helen (2020-12-17). "Alibaba offered clients facial recognition to identify Uighur people, report reveals". The Guardian. Taipei. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  9. ^ a b c Kelion, Leo (2021-01-13). "Huawei patent mentions use of Uighur-spotting tech". BBC. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  10. ^ a b Asher-Schapiro, Avi (2021-01-21). "Chinese companies patent Uighur-spotting tech". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  11. ^ Dou, Eva; Harwell, Drew (2020-12-12). "Huawei worked on several surveillance systems promoted to identify ethnicity, documents show". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  12. ^ Kharpal, Arjun (2021-01-14). "China A.I. firms and Huawei filed to patent technology that could identify Uighur Muslims, report says". CNBC. Guangzhou, China. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  13. ^ Marlay, Lachan (3 January 2022). "Scoop: Chinese surveillance firm ramps up fight against regulators". Axios.
  14. ^ Dunleavy, Jerry (23 June 2021). "Hunter Biden holds stake in Chinese firm that invested in companies sanctioned by US". Washington Examiner.
  15. ^ United States Department of State • Office of International Religious Freedom, XINJIANG 2022 INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORT (PDF), p. 26
  16. ^ THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE STRATEGIC COMPETITION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY, THE CCP'S INVESTORS: How American Venture Capital Fuels the PRC Military and Human Rights Abuses (PDF)
  17. ^ Zeeberg, Amos (April 4, 2023). "A Tiny Blog Took on Big Surveillance in China—and Won". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  18. ^ a b "China censors US publication focusing on the video surveillance industry". Reporters Without Borders. 2018-10-25. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  19. ^ Healy, Conor; Segal, Zachary; Hinnerichs, Chris; Ace, Ethan; Ward, Derek; Honovich, John (2021-03-13). "Globally deployed COVID-19 fever screening devices using infrared thermographs consistently normalize high readings to afebrile range". Journal of Biomedical Optics. 26 (4): 043009. Bibcode:2021JBO....26d3009H. doi:10.1117/1.JBO.26.4.043009. PMC 7955777. PMID 33715317.
  20. ^ Rajvanshi, Astha (2023-09-07), "John Honovich: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2023", Time, retrieved 2024-07-15
  21. ^ Are You Scared Yet, Human? (Television production). BBC. 2021-05-26. Retrieved 2021-11-02.
  22. ^ "Statements". Uyghur Tribunal. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  23. ^ Conor Healy (2021-08-20). Uyghur Surveillance & Ethnicity Detection Analytics in China (PDF) (Report). Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  24. ^ a b "VOC HELPS KEY XINJIANG CONCENTRATION CAMP SURVIVOR ESCAPE TO GIVE FIRST PERSON WITNESS TESTIMONY". Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. 2022-04-14. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  25. ^ Allen-Ebrahimian, Bethany; Markay, Lachlan (2022-04-12). "Exclusive: Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses". Axios. Retrieved 2022-05-22.
  26. ^ Bhuiyan, Johana (2022-04-13). "Former Xinjiang detainee arrives in US to testify over repeated torture he says he was subjected to". The Guardian. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
  27. ^ Allen-Ebrahimian, Bethany; Fried, Ina (2023-04-17). "Exclusive: Hikvision internal review found contracts targeted Uyghurs". Axios. Retrieved 2023-08-20.
  28. ^ Dobberstein, Laura (2023-07-31). "Hikvision, Nvidia named in contract for 'Uyghur detection'". The Register. Retrieved 2023-08-20.
  29. ^ Wong, Alan (2020-12-16). "Senior Huawei Executive Resigns Over Muslim-Tracking Technology". Vice News. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  30. ^ Nogueira, Luiz (2020-12-16). "Huawei executive resigns after controversy with facial recognition system for Muslims". Olhar Digital. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  31. ^ Whittaker, Zack (2021-05-24). "US towns are buying Chinese surveillance tech tied to Uighur abuses". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  32. ^ Whittaker, Zack (2021-10-25). "US retail giants pull Chinese surveillance tech from shelves". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-10-25.
  33. ^ Biddle, Sam (2021-07-20). "U.S. MILITARY BOUGHT CAMERAS IN VIOLATION OF AMERICA'S OWN CHINA SANCTIONS". The Intercept. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  34. ^ Ryan-Mosley, Tate (2022-01-31). "This company says it's developing a system that can recognize your face from just your DNA". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  35. ^ Fainaru-Wada, Mark; Fainaru, Steve (2022-04-14). "Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai is the face of NBA's uneasy China relationship". ESPN. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  36. ^ Clayton, James (2022-11-02). "Manchester Arena's weapon scanning tech questioned". BBC. Retrieved 2023-08-20.
  37. ^ Clayton, James (2023-05-23). "AI scanner used in hundreds of US schools misses knives". BBC. Retrieved 2023-08-20.
  38. ^ McDonough, Annie (2024-04-02), "Company behind gun detection tech previewed in subway faces multiple lawsuits and federal investigations", City & State New York, retrieved 2024-07-15
  39. ^ "Evolv Technology Rejects IPVM's Deceptive and Dangerous Articles" (Press release). Waltham, Mass.: Business Wire. 2024-03-11. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  40. ^ a b Griffin, Joel (2021-07-21). "Hikvision resigns its SIA membership". SecurityInfoWatch.com. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  41. ^ a b Bosch, Rodney (2021-07-26). "Hikvision Submits Membership Resignation Letter to SIA". Security Sales & Integration. Silver Spring, Md. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
  42. ^ a b Cimpanu, Catalin (2021-07-25). "Dahua, Hikvision out of security camera industry group". The Record. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
  43. ^ Markay, Lachlan (2022-01-04). "Scoop: Chinese surveillance firm ramps up fight against regulators". Axios. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
  44. ^ a b @SenRubioPress (January 4, 2022). "Chinese Communist companies have no place in the U.S. surveillance industry, and Sen. Rubio's Secure Equipment Act, which is current law, makes that crystal-clear. Congress should pay no heed to #CCP propaganda and dismiss Hikvision's pathetic claims against @ipvideo" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  45. ^ a b @RepTenney (January 4, 2022). "Chinese state-directed surveillance firm @HikvisionHQ is not content with just violating human rights in China, now they're trying to silence dissent and import #CCP style censorship to the US. Congress should ignore Hikvision's smear campaign against @ipvideo" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  46. ^ "Rubio, Tenney Urge Senate Secretary, House Clerk to Reject Attempts by Chinese Communist Party to Silence American Publisher" (Press release). Washington, D.C.: Marco Rubio US Senator for Florida. 2022-01-18. Archived from the original on 2022-01-21. Retrieved 2022-01-21.
  47. ^ "耿直哥 - 知乎".
  48. ^ a b "境外舆论场掀起新一波妖魔化中国的攻势！" [Overseas public opinion sets off a new wave of offensive attack to demonize China!] (in Chinese). 2021-12-01. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
  49. ^ a b 耿直哥 (2021-11-30). "境外舆论场掀起新一波妖魔化中国的攻势！" [Overseas public opinion sets off a new wave of offensive attack to demonize China!] (in Chinese). Retrieved 2021-11-30.
  50. ^ "美国大规模监控中国政府采购公开招标信息，纽约时报等都牵涉其中..." China Daily. 2022-01-28. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPVM

    by Shawn Douglas

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