The FCC has used a new component-level rule to block a dashboard camera and a wireless video transmitter from receiving U.S. market authorization. The commission said each device contained a chip made by HiSilicon, Huawei’s chip-design subsidiary. Neither device had previously been authorized for sale in the United States.
According to Reuters, the FCC blocked the two devices after exercising its authority under new rules for the first time. Reporter David Shepardson detailed how the commission described HiSilicon as advertising its chip as designed for the surveillance market, with detection algorithms for human faces built in. Neither the dashboard camera nor the video transmitter had ever been authorized for sale in the United States in the first place, as DroneXL reports.
Notably, the FCC did not identify who made either device, what the models were called, or which specific HiSilicon chip part number was involved. The commission's announcement named no manufacturer, model or chip part number, per the same outlet's reporting on the case.
A New Rule Just Nine Days Old
The action is the FCC’s first enforcement under rules that took effect October 13, extending restrictions on Chinese technology from finished products to individual components. The rules make it harder for devices containing certain logic-processing hardware from companies on the FCC’s Covered List to obtain the authorization required to enter the U.S. market, according to Caixin Global, which reports that the FCC adopted the underlying rule in July.
Huawei has sat on the FCC's Covered List since March 12, 2021, and a footnote attached to that list specifies that any named producer should be read to include its subsidiaries and affiliates — which is how HiSilicon, despite not being named outright, fell under the restriction. The commission's Covered List also includes ZTE, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Dahua Technology and Hytera Communications, per the same Caixin Global reporting.
Building on Years of Equipment Bans
The component-level rule builds on a separate FCC framework adopted in 2022, which prohibited authorization for the importation, marketing or sale of certain Chinese telecommunications and video-surveillance equipment found to pose an unacceptable national-security risk, according to a summary from law firm Davis Wright Tremaine. Those earlier prohibitions also extended to subsidiaries and affiliates of the named entities. An interim freeze order took effect November 11, 2022, barring approval of covered equipment while the broader rules awaited their effective date.
How the earlier restrictions differed
The Federal Register records that an earlier FCC rule, effective February 6, 2023, barred authorization, marketing and importation of equipment identified on the Covered List. That restriction applied to covered equipment; the newer rule extends the approach to certain components inside devices.
The commission had already been restricting authorizations for Chinese telecommunications and video-surveillance equipment it deemed a national-security threat, announcing bans in April 2023. The newer rule changes the scope by reaching components inside devices, not just finished equipment.
