The proposed licensing of vision-sensing technology could be a national-security risk, the government says.
The UK government has prevented the University of Manchester licensing vision-sensing technology to a Chinese company, on national security grounds.The Times reported the government thinks the technology could be used in military drones or missiles.It had "thorough internal processes in place to look at proposed international agreements", it said.
"These were followed in this case and, in line with the legislation, we voluntarily referred this agreement to the UK government," the university added.The blocked agreement - with "Beijing Infinite Vision Technology Company Ltd", reportedly a semiconductor company - was to develop, test and verify, manufacture, use and sell licensed products using "Scamp-5"and "Scamp-7" vision sensors.
These do not output raw images, the university's webpage says, but perform their own computations, delivering "high-speed and low-power consumption" to enable "new embedded-vision applications in areas such as robotics, VR [virtual reality], automotive, toys [and] surveillance". Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said there was the "potential that the technology could be used to build defence or technological capabilities which may present national security risk to the United Kingdom".
Former Conservative Party leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat MP welcomed the intervention, on Twitter.
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