FCC's New Chip Rule: Dashcam, Transmitter Blocked

The Federal Communications Commission on Oct. 23 blocked two consumer devices from US sale and marketing, the first enforcement actions under a rule the agency adopted recently that examines the silicon inside a product instead of its brand or model name. A dashboard camera and a wireless video transmitter can no longer reach American shelves through normal channels.

The agency acted because both products contain the Hi3516CV610 UHD Smart Vision system-on-a-chip, designed for surveillance and camera gear including vehicle dashcams and wireless CCTV systems. The chip's maker, HiSilicon, is a subsidiary of Huawei, and Huawei and its subsidiaries sit on the FCC's Covered List of entities the agency considers a risk to US national security. The FCC's Covered List is the operative document here; the ban follows the chip, not a company name on a box.

The rule itself is designed to close a gap that let rebranded products carrying parts from Chinese manufacturers named on US export restriction lists keep reaching the market. Because the action targets the processor, the FCC does not have to pursue each product or label separately. The Hi3516CV610 combines WiFi, Ethernet, video encoding hardware, an Arm Cortex-A7 processor and a neural processing unit for AI functions. The FCC described the neural processing unit as a device containing logic-bearing "smart" components made by Covered List entities, and said the same logic-bearing AI could be used for surveying US citizens and logging faces for foreign surveillance.

The chip's data sheet states that its Intelligent Video Engine runs on the neural processing unit and uses a built-in dedicated multimodal large model along with transformer feature acceleration. That allows the AI to track relationships between objects from one video frame to the next, maintaining attention on pets, faces, human figures and parcels. A camera built on it could tell a pet escaping from an unknown person taking a parcel a courier left. Huawei has been tied to an AI chip controversy before: it used shell companies to deceive TSMC into manufacturing AI chips for it after a US request that TSMC stop supplying a list of Chinese customers.

Commenters on the original report split on the move. Some called it protectionism or asked whether American surveillance differs from foreign surveillance. Others asked whether the FCC's authority covers only wireless devices, pointing to the Communications Act of 1934, which directs the agency to protect both wired and wireless interstate and international communications. Another argued bans should have been based on silicon from the start, given how many revisions and regional variants a single product can have.