Police chief sanguine about Chinese spy technolog y

by John Guinn – L ocal Democracy Reporter

BEDFORDSHIRE Police has taken steps to ensure there isn’t a security risk from using equipment manufactured in China, its chief constable has said.

In February, Fraser Sampson, the biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner, said: “There has been a lot in the news in recent days about how concerned we should be about Chinese spy balloons 60,000 feet up in the sky

“I do not understand why we are not at least as concerned about the Chinese cameras six feet above our head in the street and elsewhere ”

This followed the release of a survey by the Office of the Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner (BSCC) which claimed that police forces in the UK are “shot through” with Chinese camera technology

The BSCC is an independent monitoring body of the Home Office

During an accountability meeting held on March 20, Bedfordshire’s police and crime commissioner, Festus Akinbusoye, asked if Bedfordshire Police had any concerns around using Chinese-manufactured equipment

The force’s chief constable, Trevor Rodenhurst, said: “We’ve carried out an audit on this to address any concerns that we had

“I was involved personally with my leadership team in a Triforce exercise [earlier in March] to look at potential cyber threats to our organisation

“And to make sure that our understanding and our efforts are at the level they should be,” he added

“In relation to the specific question on Chinese technology, we did some work into this and we’ve identified one piece of kit

“We’ve looked at it in relation to how we use it, and we’ve ensured that it is not connected to the internet

“There’s no risk of any kind of data loss or anything of that nature, it’s very much an isolated system that performs a task.

“It’s good that we get asked these questions, but we have done an audit and we don’t have a concern in relation to a security risk from that threat vector,” he said

“UK law enforcement along with its intelligence partners does take these kinds of threats from state actors very seriously

“This is part of the national strategic assessment and so it is a constant focus, and it does have the right level of scrutiny nationally,” he said