IPVM

Internet Protocol Video Market (IPVM) is a security and surveillance industry research group and trade publication based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania that focuses on reviewing and reporting on video surveillance technology.

IPVM was launched in 2008 out of Hawaii, when founder John Honovich had left the surveillance industry after becoming disillusioned with what he described as "overstated marketing claims" that pervaded the industry. Soon after launching, IPVM's headquarters moved to Pennsylvania, where most of its employees were living. The website began as a news aggregator, though the company would grow to produce original investigations and conduct its own reviews of surveillance equipment. Throughout most of its history, the publication's readership and reach has been specific to the surveillance industry.

PVM gained broader recognition in 2020 and 2021 for its investigative reporting revealing how PRC-based technology firms Alibaba, Dahua Technology, Huawei and Megvii filed patents for face detection technology designed to target Uyghurs. The company's investigations on surveillance equipment used in China have been widely cited by major newspapers in the United States, including ''The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times,'' and ''The Washington Post''. Its reports have drawn the ire of Chinese video surveillance equipment company Hikvision, whom IPVM revealed to have been providing surveillance equipment and technology key in the mass internment of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. China has been critical of the company, blocking the company's website within Great Firewall, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China has denied the validity of IPVM's work relating to Huawei, claiming it was "slander".

Unlike many trade publications focused on the surveillance industry, IPVM does not accept advertising from manufacturers of surveillance technology, owing to its founder's concern around the potential for advertisers to affect the publication's editorial independence. Instead, the privately-owned website runs on a subscription-based model; , IPVM said that it maintained over 10,000 subscribers.

History

IPVM was launched in 2008 out of Hawaii, when founder John Honovich had left the surveillance industry after becoming disillusioned with what he described as "overstated marketing claims" that pervaded the industry. Soon after launching, IPVM's headquarters moved to Pennsylvania, where most of its employees were living. The website began as a news aggregator, though the company would grow to produce original investigations and conduct its own reviews of surveillance equipment. However, the publication would begin to gain notoriety more broadly following its investigations into Chinese surveillance firms. After publishing reports critical of Chinese video surveillance firms Hikvision and Dahua Technology, the Chinese government blocked IPVM behind its Great Firewall on October 19, 2018. Reporters Without Borders subsequently condemned the Chinese government’s decision.

In December 2019, IPVM would move again, leaving its headquarters in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania for a research facility in the residential Miller Heights neighborhood Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The new location allows IPVM to conduct on-site video surveillance hardware and software tests on products from a variety of leading video surveillance manufacturers. In March 2021, the ''Journal of Biomedical Optics'' published a study by five IPVM researchers and a U.S. military medical service officer on the problems with COVID-19 fever screening devices. The study was funded by IPVM and was conducted at the new facility.

China technology companies' involvement in Uyghur genocide

In May 2021, the BBC
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