The Federal Communications Commission announced on Oct. 22 that its Office of Engineering and Technology had blocked two consumer devices, a dashboard camera and a wireless video transmitter, from reaching the American market. Each contained a chip made by HiSilicon, the chip design subsidiary of Huawei.
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The action is the first enforcement under a set of component rules that took effect on Oct. 13. Neither device had yet been authorized for sale, and the agency did not name the manufacturers, models or chip part numbers.
The Office of Engineering and Technology’s two refusals
According to the agency’s own news release, the office prevented the two products from receiving the equipment approvals needed to be marketed or sold in the United States. Light Reading, in its report on the action, said the agency found that both models contained a HiSilicon chip, and that HiSilicon counts as a Covered List entity.
Chairman Brendan Carr said video devices with surveillance chips from Covered List entities present an “obvious and unacceptable risk to the nation,” according to The Record. The chairman also praised the engineering office for keeping the products from getting the approvals they needed for sale. The release does not say how the office identified the chips. The FCC also quoted HiSilicon’s own marketing in the release. HiSilicon describes the chip in that material as “designed for the surveillance market” and advertises built-in detection algorithms for human faces. Huawei did not immediately respond to The Record’s request for comment.
The Covered List and its subsidiary footnote
The Covered List, which the commission maintains on its supply chain security pages, is a roster of communications equipment and services that the agency’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau has determined pose an unacceptable risk to national security or to the safety of U.S. persons. HiSilicon does not appear on it by name. Huawei does, and a footnote on the FCC’s Covered List page says listed producers should be read to include their subsidiaries and affiliates.
That footnote is what brings a subsidiary’s silicon inside the rule. The Record reported that, before the new rules, agency regulations did not bar otherwise lawful devices simply because they contained components from a Covered List entity. Huawei itself has been on the list since March 12, 2021, as reported by DroneXL.
The component rules and their effective date
The new rules bar authorization of devices that contain logic-bearing components, the chips and other smart parts that process or store data, made by Covered List entities. DroneXL’s write-up of the action reports that they took effect on Oct. 13 and apply only going forward. Equipment authorized before that date keeps its authorization, so owners of existing products have nothing to do.
Applications pending on Oct. 13 are exempt unless the applicant later changes a logic-bearing component. DroneXL adds that the rules also keep a new American-built drone from receiving authorization if it contains a logic-bearing part from DJI or Autel. Both blocked filings were made or amended on or after that date, which is why the two products fell under the rules. Under the attestation model the rules use, an applicant certifies that a device contains no covered component, and the agency can revoke authorizations obtained through a false certification.
The same article notes that the framework came out of a Third Report and Order, FCC 26-50, adopted on July 22. That order keeps the attestation approach and a streamlined revocation process first set up in 2022, and a further notice in the same proceeding asks whether applications should include a hardware and software bill of materials.
What remains unstated
Several details are absent from the public accounts. The FCC has not identified the applicants, so the dash camera and the transmitter cannot be matched to any product on sale. Because neither product had been authorized, no unit approved by the agency was on the market to be pulled back, which fits the forward-looking design of the rules. DroneXL also notes that the release does not say whether the video transmitter was built for drones, though the agency separately treats certain foreign-produced data transmission devices for drones as covered components.
The release likewise does not disclose how the engineering office found the chips, whether the applicants listed them, or whether they surfaced in the internal photographs filed with certification applications. DroneXL’s author speculates about the photographs and urges the agency to publish equipment identifiers, but that is the writer’s view and not a statement from the FCC. The agency said it will keep enforcing the component rules, per Light Reading, so further actions of this kind are possible. The public record is therefore thin. For now it consists of one announcement covering two unnamed products, one Chairman statement, and a rule whose first two applications were stopped before authorization.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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