Cisco denies building video surveillance network in Chongqing

Networking giant Cisco (CSCO.NASDAQ) denied reports that it is helping to build a sophisticated video surveillance network in the western municipality of Chongqing, The Street reported. On Tuesday the Wall Street Journal issued a report claiming that an examination of the “Peaceful Chongqing” project revealed that Cisco and other multinational technology firms were expected to provide the networking equipment required to operate a surveillance system made up of as many as 500,000 cameras surveying 400 square miles of urban territory, an area 25% larger than New York City. The US government has prohibited the export of crime-control products to China, including fingerprinting equipment, ever since the incident in Tiananmen Square in 1989, but dual use technologies like cameras that are not customized for crime control are not subject to the restriction. However, Cisco general counsel Marc Chandler denied the report in a blog post today. “As a matter of policy, Cisco has not and will not sell video surveillance cameras or video surveillance management software in its public infrastructure projects in China,” he wrote. “We were offered an opportunity to supply those products in Chongqing and, contrary to the suggestion in the article, declined that opportunity.”