The payment was documented in a contract between China-based Hikvision and the Hainan Province's Chengmai County, which was obtained by IPVM.

"While the People's Republic of China (PRC) has sharply restricted access to sensitive documents such as this one, this shows that persecution of Uyghur ethnic minorities is ongoing and that Hikvision, in what the authorities called its 'standard configuration,' can and does supply this human rights-abusing software," IPVM's researchers claimed last week.

Beijing regards the Uyghurs as a threat on grounds that their beliefs and affiliation with central Asian cultures represent a threat to Chinese sovereignty. Human rights groups assert that Uyghurs are surveilled, incarcerated, required to perform forced labor, re-educated to abandon their beliefs and cultural practices, and may even be subjected to sterilization campaigns.

Technology vendors are thought to know their wares assist in those efforts, and perhaps even to develop capabilities that enable Beijing's human rights abuses.

Hikvision earned itself a spot on the US blacklist in 2019 for allegedly being complicit in Beijing's suppression of the Uyghur population. Hikvision has denied being "knowingly" involved in human rights abuses.

Nvidia was also named in this latest contract, though the accelerator maker says it hasn't sold kit to Hikvision since 2019, and isn't involved in this contract.