French men’s national soccer team player and La Liga Barcelona FC star Antoine Griezmann announced on Dec. 10 via his personal Instagram account that he was immediately ending his partnership with Chinese communications giant Huawei. Earlier, Huawei was allegedly involved in a face recognition program for Uyghurs, as disclosed by a Pennsylvania-based company called IPVM, which reviews and investigates video surveillance equipment, as cited by the Washington Post. Griezmann, who won the World Cup with France in 2018, called on Huawei to “take concrete action as soon as possible to denounce this massive repression.”
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the newspaper, with the help of research firm IPVM, obtained relevant project information from Huawei’s website and found that Huawei had indeed cooperated with Beijing Kuangwei Technology Co. The test report documented that Huawei worked with Kuangvision in 2018 to test an artificial intelligence camera system that could scan faces, estimate the age, gender and race of each person, and trigger a “Uighur alert” if the face of a Uighur was detected, potentially alerting the Chinese police. The report said that the test report was a result of the Uyghur test.
The test report was found on Huawei’s website, but was removed shortly after the Washington Post and IPVM asked the company for comment, according to the report. However, both Huawei and Kuangwei Technology Group acknowledged that the document was authentic. Glenn Schloss, a spokesman for Huawei, said the report “is only a test and has not seen practical application. Huawei only provides generic products for such tests. We do not provide custom algorithms or applications.” A spokesman for Kuangwei also stressed that the company’s system is not designed to target or flag racial groups.
In response, Griezmann sent out a statement in white on black on his Instagram account Thursday. The statement reads, “After strongly suspecting that Huawei used facial recognition software to enable the development of ‘Uyghur Alert,’ I am announcing the immediate termination of our partnership with the company.” He also invited Huawei to “take concrete action as soon as possible to denounce this massive repression and use its influence to promote respect for human and women’s rights in society.”
Griezmann, who previously played for Atletico Madrid in La Liga, became a global brand ambassador for Huawei in April 2017 and subsequently endorsed the P10 cell phone and other products, according to the news release. instragram is also one of the main platforms for Griezmann to promote endorsements for sponsors such as Huawei. Recently, Griezmann and other French stars have also publicly condemned and called out cases of police violence in France.
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