Punjab 'Safe City' surveillance 

Risks and harms 🛑

Punjab Safe City has proved controversial for a variety of reasons, notably the non-existent or poor functioning of parts of the system, resulting in crime hot spots, and accusations of technology 'theft' involving Huawei and its Pakistan subsidiary.

• Reliability. According to media reports, at least one quarter of the 8,000 facial recognition cameras in the first IC3, Lahore Safe City, were not in a fully-functional state for several years, meaning several major roads could not be monitored and that a number of publc areas had become centres of criminal gang activities.

• IP. In 2021, Business Efficiency Solutions (BES) sued (pdf) Huawei and its Pakistan subsidiary for allegedly stealing its trade secrets in order to 'create a backdoor and obtain data important to Pakistan’s national security and to spy on Pakistani citizens.' The lawsuit states that the alleged back door was located in a database that consolidated sensitive information such as national ID card records, foreigner registrations, tax records and criminal records. It also claims that Huawei demanded that it install a duplicate DES in the Chinese city of Suzhou that would give it direct access to the Pakistan data. 

Legal, regulatory 👩🏼‍⚖️

• Business Efficiency Solutions v Huawei (2021) (pdf) 

Research, advocacy 🧮

• Dube R. (2023). Huawei's business ethics and privacy violations in Pakistan; But spying too?

• Center for Strategic and International Studies (2019). Watching Huawei's Safe Cities

• Digital Rights Foundation (2018). Punjab Government's Safe City Project - Safer City or Over-policing?

News, commentary, analysis 🗞️

• https://www.biometricupdate.com/202209/pakistan-safe-city-project-stalls-with-nearly-1k-facial-recognition-cameras-not-functioning

• https://www.dawn.com/news/1708961/lahore-fails-to-accrue-safe-city-project-potential

• https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-accused-in-suit-of-installing-data-back-door-in-pakistan-project-11628947988

• https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/huawei-blamed-for-installing-data-back-door-in-pakistan-s-safe-city-project-1841625-2021-08-16

• https://www.technologytimes.pk/2021/08/15/lahore-safe-city-launch-investigation-against-huawei-on-llegation-of-installing-back-door-data/

• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-12/huawei-s-surveillance-network-claims-face-scrutiny#xj4y7vzkg

• https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/13/huawei_accused_of_trade_secret/

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47856098