UK police cyber links with China criticised by Eftimiades
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Former CIA officer Nicholas Eftimiades has criticised the UK companies and security institutions for maintaining cyber links with China. It comes amid reports that United Kingdom investors hold shares totalling £800 million in companies that supply CCTV and facial recognition technology being used by the regime of Xi Jinping to track the country’s minority Uighur Muslim population in Xinjiang.
Mr Eftimiades told Express.co.uk: “The UK government just recently came out with a list of 800 or so instances or cases where technology was used in the repression in the Uyghur system.
“You had a former, I think he is still current head of London Metropolitan police section on facial recognition coming back from China saying ‘that is the way we need to do things here.’
“In theoretically the most digital authoritarian state n the history of history and his response was that’s the way we ought to do things here.
“It gets to be literally insane.”
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The former US intelligence official continued: “So there are a lot of corporate interests, people were providing capabilities to China and you know there is some plausible deniability.
“But it is always an adventure you can trace back what goes to repression in the Chinese government and regime.
“The question is who cares?
“I mean it really literally comes down to that, does anyone really care that they are being repressive in Xingjiang?”
UK police cyber links with China criticised by Eftimiades
Mr Eftimiades is clear that Britain is at the “forefront” of Chinese intelligence-gathering with the CCP looking to profit from UK technological secrets.
He told Express.co.uk: “I have been following Chinese espionage and economic espionage since the mid-1990s, since the early 90s as well.
“In fact over the past decade, I have built up a database of almost 600 cases that have been identified as Chinese espionage, economic espionage, covert action which is a specific type of covert work on behalf of a foreign government etcetera.
“We learn a lot of things through that much data very specifically the trends, the types of technology China is after.
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“As well as the operational means and methodologies which we term tradecraft which they use to illegally or covertly acquire these technologies.”
The expert on Chinese espionage operations added: “In the case of the United States and Europe, and Japan, advanced countries and I can actually name them.
“United States is probably first for economic espionage.
“Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.
“Those as far as theft of technology and economic espionage those countries are at the forefront of China’s efforts.”
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