The FCC Just Blocked Its First Gadgets Over a Huawei-Linked Spy Chip

The FCC has blocked its first gadgets under a power it gave itself only nine days ago, and the target is a computer chip with ties to Huawei.

On October 13th, the agency, led by Chairman Brendan Carr, granted itself new authority to block any device containing a chip made by a company on its list of national security threats. Today it used that authority for the first time, saying it's blocking two gadgets because they contain what it calls "foreign surveillance chips."

The FCC hasn't said which specific products got blocked, and it didn't respond to a request for comment from The Verge. But it did name the chip at the center of the action: the HiVision Hi3516CV610 UHD Smart Vision SoC. That's a system-on-a-chip that takes a raw signal from a camera sensor and turns it into something usable in a security camera or dashcam. According to listings reviewed by The Verge on AliExpress, it's often bundled with a Sony camera sensor and sometimes even comes with a lens already attached, making it a near-complete hardware package for anyone building a camera product.

The FCC's case against the chip rests on two things. First, HiVision markets it as built for the surveillance market, with what the agency describes as built-in detection algorithms for human faces. Second, and more significant, HiVision is a subsidiary of Huawei, the telecom giant that was among the first companies the US government formally labeled a national security risk. Huawei has been on the FCC's Covered List for years, a roster of companies whose equipment the government considers unsafe for use in US networks.

That list has mostly been used to keep Huawei and similar firms out of networking equipment directly. The problem the FCC is now trying to solve is subtler: a banned company's technology showing up inside someone else's product. A chip from a blacklisted firm's subsidiary can end up buried inside a camera, a dashcam, or some other gadget sold under a completely different brand, with no obvious trace back to Huawei. The new authority to block devices based on their internal chips is designed to close that gap.

This isn't the first time the FCC has stretched its own rulebook to get ahead of that kind of workaround. It previously gave itself the power to retroactively ban gadgets already on the market, and separately moved to block modular radio transmitters, the small wireless components that get dropped into all kinds of connected devices. Each move follows the same logic: rather than policing finished products one by one, go after the components that make surveillance or security risks possible in the first place.

Whether that approach actually works is the open question. The FCC has taken similar swings before, including bans targeting routers and robot vacuums, and each time the same criticism has surfaced: is this genuinely closing security gaps, or is it a visible but narrow gesture that lets the agency claim it's acting tough on China-linked tech without addressing the broader supply chain? The FCC has repeatedly declined to discuss its enforcement strategy when asked.

What's clear is that the agency now has a new tool it's willing to use quickly. Granting itself the power on October 13th and deploying it within the same month suggests the FCC intends this authority as a live enforcement mechanism, not a shelved contingency. The HiVision chip may be the first casualty, but the bigger story is the precedent: components tied to blacklisted companies, however deeply embedded in a device's supply chain, are now fair game for a block. Expect more of these actions, and expect the same scrutiny over whether they're solving a real problem or just producing headlines.