The two companies are said to have used a facial recognition system.

Chinese tech giant Huawei and Megvii, one of the country’s largest AI companies, have reportedly tested a facial recognition system to track Uighur Muslims, a repressed minority group. On detection, the system also alerts the authorities. (CNBC)

IPVM, a US-based research company that specializes in video surveillance analysis, chanced upon a 2018 official document authored by the two Chinese companies. The document revealed that Huawei tested Megvii’s AI software on its video cloud infrastructure. This included Huawei’s cameras, servers, and cloud computing resources.

The document was uploaded on Huawei’s website and marked “confidential.” However, IPVM found it during a Google search.

IPVM found “Uyghur Alert”

IPVM said the trial by the Chinese companies specifically tested a feature called “Uyghur Alert.”

Such a capability could be used to identify and report a member of that minority group to the authorities.

“Systems like Megvii are integrated into the Huawei system so that information and alarms (like on Uyghurs) are generated by Megvii and then sent into the Huawei system so that the monitors (e.g., police) can review and respond,” John Honovich, president of IPVM, told CNBC via email.

The software could also conduct “face attribute analysis” and determine the “ethnicity” of a person, the IPVM report said.

In a twist, the report also revealed that the experiment utilized the Tesla P4 GPU chip. The processor is built by US semiconductor giant Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA).

Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment by CNBC.

Comments by Huawei, Megvii on the IPVM findings

The two companies did not deny the genuineness of the document discovered by IPVM.

However, Huawei responded to CNBC that the system was “simply a test” and had not been deployed into the real world.

Megvii told CNBC that its solutions did not target or monitor any ethnic or demographic groups. “Our business is focused on the well-being and safety of individuals,” it said.

Washington’s stand

Last year, the U.S. said American firms were barred from doing business with 28 organizations in the “Entity List.” These included many of China’s biggest AI and electronic surveillance firms such as Megvii and Hikvision.

Washington charged that these entities were implicated in human rights violations and abuses such as mass arbitrary detention and high-technology surveillance of Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups.

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