Investigation finds IBM, Hikvision, and Huawei are helping the UAE government implement a biometric surveillance system in Dubai, raising privacy concerns
Face recognition has been banned in San Francisco and linked by AOC to a rise in global fascism. But it's being marketed in Dubai … Tweets: @buzzfeednews , @buzzfeednews , @evanselinger , @meghara , @matthewchampion , and @mhbergen Tweets: @buzzfeednews : Civil rights advocates tell us the technology's unchecked use in public spaces presents a grave threat to individual privacy and could make the most abusive practices of police forces worse. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... @buzzfeednews : The United Arab Emirates spies on hundreds of dissidents and journalists, and has invested heavily in surveillance technology. Yet US and Chinese tech companies are competing to supply Dubai's police force with biometric surveillance and AI products. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... Evan Selinger / @evanselinger : As soon as @hartzog & I proposed banning f-r (nearly a year ago!), critics said, “Bans can't work in a global world. Ban it here. Watch it thrive elsewhere.” Here's a better response. Create moral courage here. Lead by example & try to leverage it elsewhere. https://twitter.com/... Megha Rajagopalan / @meghara : The UAE has poured money into surveillance of dissidents, journalists and exiles. Now a host of international tech giants are competing to supply the tech to realize Dubai's facial recognition ambitions. My latest. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... via @BuzzFeedNews Matthew Champion / @matthewchampion : -San Francisco banned police from using it -@AOC linked its use to a rise in global fascism -Amazon faced pressure from activist shareholders over sales but tech giants pitched up in Dubai trying to sell facial recognition technology to police there https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... pic.twitter.com/PvtnwqBGlx Mark Bergen / @mhbergen : “But even as the technology comes under more scrutiny in the United States, tech giants such as IBM, and China's Hikvision and Huawei, are marketing biometric surveillance systems in the UAE, where citizens have fewer options to push back” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
The investigation lands at a moment when facial recognition is being restricted in some democracies — San Francisco's ban and Microsoft and Amazon's push for federal rules show Western vendors under pressure at home — while demand migrates to markets with fewer checks. The same playbook BuzzFeed documented in China, where private firms built AI and iris-scanning surveillance in Xinjiang, is now being exported: IBM, Hikvision, and Huawei are supplying a biometric system for Dubai police.
First-order effects
- Dubai police gain an operational biometric surveillance capability built by three named vendors, placing IBM alongside Chinese firms Hikvision and Huawei in the same deployment.
- Civil rights advocates cited in the report warn the unchecked use of the technology in public spaces directly threatens individual privacy — and the UAE's reported spying on dissidents and journalists gives that warning a specific target population.
Second-order effects
- Hikvision and Huawei deepen their footprint in Gulf surveillance export markets, consistent with China's position as nearly half of the global facial recognition business per IHS (2018 figures), while Western rivals face a choice between ceding those contracts and taking reputational risk.
- US firms' involvement hands ammunition to the domestic regulation debate already underway between Microsoft, Amazon, and local lawmakers, since exports to authoritarian clients are exactly what federal rules would govern.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the industry bifurcates into regulated home markets and unregulated export markets, with the EU's reported plan for national police facial recognition databases (circulated among officials in late 2019) showing even democracies institutionalizing the technology rather than banning it.
- Surveillance becomes a durable component of state-to-state technology relationships, where vendor access to foreign police systems doubles as geopolitical influence.
The trend: Facial recognition is consolidating into a global export market in which Chinese vendors dominate scale while Western firms compete for the same government clients absent binding rules at home or abroad.