Police are using Huawei surveillance technology despite the Government declaring the company a national security risk amid growing fears over Chinese spying on the West.

Huawei was banned from the UK’s 5G phone network last year because of warnings by UK spy chiefs.

But an investigation by a UK watchdog has revealed it is among six Chinese firms providing surveillance cameras to at least two-thirds of Britain’s police forces despite some also being blacklisted by the US as national security risks.

The police forces admitted they were using the technology despite knowing the “security and ethical concerns” around the firms. Some have been accused of providing surveillance cameras at detention camps for Uyghur Muslims. Chinese law says firms must “support, assist and co-operate” with state intelligence work.

It comes after Romania on Tuesday night scrambled fighter jets to intercept a suspicious weather balloon in its airspace - the first UFO tracked in European airspace in the wake of such devices being detected over North America.

US allies have been in a state of alarm since a huge white balloon from China was spotted tracking a series of top-secret nuclear weapons sites in western America, before being shot down just off the east coast on Feb 4. Three other unidentified flying objects have been downed in North American airspace since.

Huawei is supplying surveillance technology for internal and external use to one unnamed police force, according to the investigation by Fraser Sampson, the biometric and surveillance commissioner.

Last year the Government ordered Huawei technology to be removed from the UK’s 5G network by the end of 2027 after declaring that it was a “high-risk” vendor that has also had sanctions imposed by the US.

It followed an assessment by the intelligence agency GCHQ’s national cyber security centre that found the company was a risk to national security.

A designation notice said the firm could be used by the Chinese state to spy on the UK and mount cyber attacks with “covert and malicious” software embedded in its systems. It said the quality of its products was such that they gave rise to a “real risk of hostile exploitation and/or systemic failures”.

‘Security and ethical concerns’

Mr Sampson said that for both security and ethical reasons, the Government needed to be asking “whether it is ever appropriate for public bodies to use equipment made by companies with such serious questions hanging over them”.

He said police forces were “shot through” with Chinese surveillance cameras despite knowing there were security and ethical concerns about the companies that supplied them.

“There has been a lot in the news in recent days about how concerned we should be about Chinese spy balloons 60,000 feet up in the sky. I do not understand why we are not at least as concerned about the Chinese cameras six feet above our head in the street and elsewhere,” said Mr Sampson.

At least two-thirds - or 24 - of the 39 police forces that responded to the watchdog’s survey said they used internal camera systems from companies where there had been “security or ethical” concerns including Huawei and Hikvision, which is part-owned by the Chinese state and banned in the US as a security risk.

At least 18 respondents said they had installed external cameras from companies including Huawei and Hikvision, while at least 10 police forces are using ANPR number plate recognition cameras supplied by Hikvision, blacklisted as a security risk by the US.

Majority of UK police drones made by Chinese firm

It follows the disclosure by The Telegraph that more than two-thirds of drones operated by police forces in the UK are made by DJI, a Chinese firm that is blacklisted in the US.

UK police data, obtained by The Telegraph, showed at least 230 of the 337 drones operated by 37 police forces are supplied by DJI. Some forces refused to reveal the companies providing their drones.

Pressure to review their contracts is likely to grow as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has banned the use of Chinese DJI drones in any operational scenario. An MoD source said: “We do not comment on our security arrangements but can confirm these drones would not be used for sensitive taskings.”

It is thought that cheaper Chinese drones could still be deployed for media work or in training. An MoD warning, seen by The Telegraph, shows that MoD concerns about drones - or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAEs) - date back at least five years.

A guidance note from 2017 said: “There is to be NO use of any COTS [commercial off the shelf] UAS on/over M0D land. The rationale being that they hoover up huge amounts of data and there is no control over what is collected or where it goes.”

The Chinese government has criticised the removal of Huawei from 5G as groundless. Hikvision has said claims it poses a threat to national security are “categorically false”.