# Hikvision **Hikvision** (Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd.) is the world's largest manufacturer of video surveillance equipment, a Chinese state-backed company that has become a flashpoint in the U.S.-[[China]] technology confrontation. The company supplies cameras, facial recognition systems, and AI-powered analytics to governments, law enforcement agencies, and commercial customers worldwide, with an estimated 30%+ global market share in video surveillance. In 2019, the U.S. government placed Hikvision on the Commerce Department's Entity List — effectively blacklisting it from purchasing American technology — citing the company's role in enabling human rights abuses, particularly the mass surveillance of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. Hikvision's products are integral to China's [[Surveillance State]] infrastructure, including the social credit monitoring system and the network of detention camps in western China. The company exemplifies the dual-use dilemma of surveillance technology: equipment sold for traffic monitoring or retail analytics is architecturally identical to the systems used for political repression and ethnic tracking, with [[Facial Recognition]] as the common technical foundation.