US smart home company accused of rebranding footage-leaking Chinese cameras — Nebraska AG to sue Resideo over selling banned security cameras

It’s a reasonably open industry secret that a great deal of home cameras, especially those from more affordable brands, are riddled with security holes and/or are suspect of leaking video to interested third parties like government agencies. Resideo is the latest smart home product company caught in the sights of U.S. law, more specifically by Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers.

Hilgers is filing a lawsuit in the Nebraska state court, claiming that Resideo has broken the Nebraska Consumer Protection Act and the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Art. The company is accused of selling wares that are known to be insecure to unsuspecting consumers, and obscuring the OEMs for its cameras.

Resideo, a Honeywell spin-off with a market cap over $5 billion, apparently failed to properly disclose that the OEMs for its cameras are or were Hikvision and Dahua. The two Chinese companies are in several U.S. government restrictions, chiefly among them a ban by the FCC since November 2022 over concern of threats to national security. The lawsuit clams that Resideo sold Hikvision/Dahua cameras at least from 2021 to 2022 under its Capture brand, obscuring their origin.

Aside from governmental concerns, equipment from both brands has been under the scrutiny of security professionals for the better part of a decade, both for plain security issues and for intentional backdoors for remote access.

This latest lawsuit joins the ever-growing list of similar legal action against sellers of Chinese smart devices. In September, Hilgers himself sued Lorex, another camera maker that sells its gear in Costco and Best Buy, for similar reasons. Lorex reportedly sold its cameras as “private by design,” once again forgetting to mention that the OEM for the cameras is sanctioned by the U.S.

The story isn’t much different in other states. Over in Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Sony, LG, Samsung, TCL, and HiSense over the firms’ data collection practices with automated TV screenshot collection. And in Arizona, its AG Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit against Temu over data collection, privacy, and counterfeiting concerns. DJI drones just got an official ban from the FCC, as well. Given how prevalent Chinese OEMs are in everyday household electronics, this tale is probably just getting started.