Home Depot, Best Buy, and Lowe’s have pulled security cameras made by Lorex and Ezviz from their shelves after being questioned about the camera makers’ links to human rights abuses.
TechCrunch reports that all three stores removed the products from their stores after it requested comment on their relationship to the companies. At issue is the fact that Lorex and Ezviz are operated by Dahua and Hikvizion, respectively, which the US Department of Commerce added to the Entity List in 2019 for enabling human rights violations.
The Bureau of Industry and Security said at the time that the companies “have been implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups” in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
But the cameras remained on sale at Home Depot, Best Buy, and Lowe’s until they were contacted by TechCrunch and IPVM. Best Buy still lists Lorex products online at the time of this writing; it told TechCrunch it’s “discontinuing its relationship” with both firms. Home Depot and Lowe’s have both stopped selling the products via their websites. Walmart and Costco are still selling the cameras.
Home Depot, Best Buy, and Lowe’s didn’t immediately respond to our request for more details about their relationships with Lorex and Ezviz, or what they plan to do with the products they’re removing from their stores.
