South Korea's Coast Guard has been using Chinese-made body cameras without any separate security screening while cracking down on illegal Chinese fishing boats in the Yellow Sea, raising concerns that enforcement data could leak.
Rep. Suh Sam-suk of the Democratic Party of Korea, who chairs the National Assembly's Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee, said on the 24th that an analysis of Coast Guard patrol boat body camera records obtained from the Korea Coast Guard found that 110 of the 808 body cameras in use on patrol vessels are Chinese-made.
The Coast Guard issues body cameras to front-line officers to record video and audio during operations to expel or seize illegal Chinese fishing boats, securing video evidence and verifying conditions on the scene. Of the body cameras currently used on Coast Guard vessels, 681 are U.S.-made, 110 are Chinese-made and 17 are other models, including products from the Korean company 4FACT.
The Coast Guard has used body cameras on patrol boats since 2012, but this year marks the first time Chinese-made devices have been introduced. Of the 110 Chinese-made body cameras brought in, 100 were concentrated in areas where Chinese fishing boats frequently appear, including the five northwestern islands in the Yellow Sea, Incheon, Taean and Jeju Special Self-Governing Province. That means Chinese-made equipment has been deployed on the front line of enforcement against Chinese fishing boats.
The problem is that the Coast Guard did not conduct a single separate security check when it introduced and began operating the Chinese-made body cameras. The devices do not have their own wireless communication functions such as LTE, but they are equipped with external communication capability via Wi-Fi.
Even so, body cameras are excluded from security screening requirements under wireless equipment standards, and no security review was carried out after they were introduced. The Coast Guard's rules on the operation of wearable recording devices contained no provisions on security, and the equipment was introduced and managed individually by each department, leaving the management system poorly organized.
It was only on the 12th that the Coast Guard belatedly issued a directive ordering officers to stop using Chinese-made equipment until security checks are completed. The U.S. restricts the use of Chinese-made equipment by government agencies, citing national security concerns.
"Video from crackdowns on illegal Chinese fishing contains our Coast Guard's on-scene response system and enforcement information, so thorough security management is necessary," Suh said. "Using Chinese-made equipment that raises security concerns without separate verification reflects a serious lack of security awareness."