The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked all States and government departments to avoid procuring CCTVs, its allied solution and hardware, from suppliers who have a “history of security and data breaches.”
The MHA memorandum comes in the wake of a series of guidelines issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) since March after various ministries raised concerns regarding the security implications associated with CCTVs and other Internet of Things (loT) devices. In a March 11 advisory, MeITY said that “various incidents have also been reported due to security flaw in the surveillance cameras.”
The advisory titled “Threat of Information Leakage through CCTV/ Video Surveillance system (VSS)/ Digital Video Recorders /Network Video Recorders” said that “while surveillance technologies undoubtedly offer a range of benefits and are valuable tools for monitoring and security, they also raise certain concerns and risks. Some of the growing risks associated with CCTV systems include data security, privacy breach, hacking and cyberattack etc.”
