Iowa Sues Lorex and ADI Over China-Linked Camera Claims

Iowa Sues Lorex and ADI Over China-Linked Camera Claims

Iowa's attorney general sued two camera sellers in Polk County District Court in one week, accusing Lorex Corporation of marketing cameras as private and secure without disclosing Dahua's role, and ADI Global Distribution of selling Hikvision and Dahua cameras without disclosing their makers or the risks. Both petitions, dated October 7 and October 8, 2026, are allegations at the pleading stage.

Information last verified on October 10, 2026. This is a developing story; we update it as the record changes.

Jurisdiction scope: This article covers two civil enforcement petitions filed by the State of Iowa under Iowa Code section 714.16, and the federal designations and FCC rules those petitions describe. It does not cover criminal liability, private claims that have not been filed, the parallel Nebraska and Texas cases beyond their public postures, or the separate question of where you may lawfully point a camera.

What Happened

On October 8, 2026, the Iowa Attorney General's office signed a petition captioned State of Iowa ex rel. Attorney General Brenna Bird v. Lorex Corporation, filed in the Iowa District Court for Polk County. The office announced it the next day. The signature block reads "DATED this 8th day of October, 2026" and carries Assistant Attorney General Laura L. Mommsen, Deputy Attorney General for Consumer Protection Daniel L. Barnes, and outside counsel Brunn (Beau) Roysden of Culper Law PLLC, whose pro hac vice admission the filing lists as forthcoming. The equity number is blank on the copy the attorney general posted, so no Iowa docket number appears on the face of the document.

The petition's core allegation is about marketing, not hacking. It says Lorex sold privacy and then withheld the one fact a buyer would weigh.

"Lorex has marketed its home security cameras to Iowa consumers as protective of their privacy and security." Source: State of Iowa ex rel. Bird v. Lorex Corp., Petition para. 2 (Iowa Dist. Ct. Polk Cnty., dated Oct. 8, 2026)

From there the State pleads five groupings of claims under one statute. First, that Lorex's affirmative representations were false or deceptive: that privacy is the company's "top priority," that it takes "every step possible to ensure your recordings remain private," and that its cameras are "Private by design," when, the State alleges, many of those cameras were built with components, firmware, and technology from Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co., Ltd. Second, that Lorex concealed Dahua's role and the risks that go with it. Third, that a disclaimer on Lorex's FAQ page, which says Lorex products are for consumer and business use and not for federal government or federally funded projects subject to the NDAA, misleads a reader into thinking any concern stops at the government's door. Fourth, an unfair-trade-practices count. Fifth, a claim for reimbursement and disgorgement.

The petition singles out the marketing of cameras for sensitive rooms, including as a "Baby Cam," and pleads that on information and belief many Iowa purchasers are sixty or older, which triggers an additional penalty provision. The attorney general's October 9 release puts it in blunter terms than the pleading does, saying the cameras have flaws that let hackers "including those affiliated with China" reach feeds and archives. That characterization appears in the release. The counts themselves plead vulnerability and non-disclosure.

The relief sought is forward-looking and corrective. Lorex's prayer asks for a declaratory judgment, a preliminary and permanent injunction, civil penalties of up to $40,000 per violation plus up to $5,000 per violation against an older individual, reimbursement, disgorgement, costs, and fees. Its most striking paragraph asks the court to order Lorex to disclose Dahua's role clearly on its own websites, on product packaging, and in the content it supplies to retailers, and to give clear and conspicuous notice of those facts, at Lorex's expense, to every Iowa consumer it can identify who bought or registered a Lorex camera.

The ADI petition, read in full

The second camera suit was signed a day earlier. State of Iowa ex rel. Attorney General Brenna Bird v. ADI Global Distribution Inc. is dated "this 7th day of October, 2026," also in Polk County, also under section 714.16, with the same counsel block and the same blank equity number. The attorney general announced it on October 7 and called it the second lawsuit in a series that week against China-aligned entities, the first being a router case against TP-Link Systems Inc. announced the day before. The two camera suits are the subject here.

ADI opens on the same irony the Lorex filing leans on.

"Home security products such as security cameras are meant to promote the security of the purchaser by monitoring others who may pose a threat." Source: State of Iowa ex rel. Bird v. ADI Global Distribution Inc., Petition para. 1 (Iowa Dist. Ct. Polk Cnty., dated Oct. 7, 2026)

The defendant is a newly standalone company. The petition treats ADI Global Distribution Inc. and Resideo Technologies, Inc.'s former ADI Global Distribution business as one actor, because ADI now holds that business's assets and liabilities after a 2026 spin-off described in a July 20, 2026 SEC information statement. Jurisdiction is pleaded on imputed predecessor contacts, citing Ostrem v. Prideco Secure Loan Fund, LP, 841 N.W.2d 882, 896 (Iowa 2014).

The ADI petition pleads six groupings of claims. The deceptive-representation count quotes ADI's own marketing: that it helps keep communities "safe, secure, comfortable and connected," that it offers solutions for "educational and healthcare facilities, entertainment venues, offices, homes and more," that with Hikvision's video surveillance suite "all data remains within the client's local network," and that Dahua offers "high performance security." A second count targets the "Capture" brand: the State alleges on information and belief that from 2021 to 2022 ADI sold Dahua-manufactured cameras under its own Capture label without disclosing the manufacturer, then stopped using Dahua in that line in 2022 without telling anyone who had already bought one. A third count concerns NDAA compliance, including an allegation, again on information and belief, that ADI listed a Hikvision camera as NDAA compliant when it was not and simply deleted the field when that was pointed out. A fourth count is unusual in a camera case: it alleges that ADI's published statement that its subsidiary Snap One does not tolerate human trafficking or slavery in its own or its suppliers' operations is misleading when set against the Entity List basis for Hikvision and Dahua. The fifth and sixth are unfair trade practices and reimbursement and disgorgement.

Here the press release and the pleading diverge in three places worth flagging. The release says ADI "at times even chang[ed] the labels on the cameras to trick U.S. distributors." The pleaded conduct is the Capture white-labeling, pleaded on information and belief, and a false NDAA-compliance label on a Hikvision camera, also pleaded on information and belief; the further detail that ADI deleted the field once this was pointed out is attributed in the petition to an IPVM report (para. 74). The release also attributes a quotation about equipment being "vulnerable to spying from hackers and information requests" to the Federal Communications Commission. In the petition that line comes from an October 2023 letter from the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China to ADI's president.

The third divergence is the broadest. The ADI release is headlined "Sues Video Surveillance Company ADI Global Distribution for Making Iowans' Private Data Available to China," and the attorney general's quotation in it says the cameras are "making Iowans' private information" available "to the Chinese government and military." The petition pleads that ADI's conduct placed Iowa consumers at risk of harm by "potentially" making their intimate images and private locations vulnerable to foreign actors (para. 22), and its unfair-practice count pleads "the risk of exposure" of that data (para. 100). Neither paragraph pleads that any transfer or access actually happened.

The ADI prayer is shorter than Lorex's. It seeks a declaration, an injunction, $40,000-per-violation penalties, reimbursement, disgorgement, costs, and fees. It contains no notice-to-purchasers request and no older-individual penalty count.

What neither petition says

This is the distinction that matters most, and it survives a full read of every count and both prayers. Neither petition identifies a specific incident in which an Iowan's footage was accessed or sent to China by either company.

What each petition does plead is exposure risk. Both use the same construction in their opening paragraphs: that collected information, which may include sensitive pictures, audio or video, "is susceptible to being accessed" by China or the Chinese Communist Party. The Lorex unfair-practice count goes a step further and pleads injury "including the exposure of images and sounds from inside their homes, and of their personal data, to unauthorized access" (para. 74), in general terms rather than by reference to any identified consumer. The ADI petition catalogues third-party reports of compromises of Hikvision and Dahua equipment generally, including a 2023 IPVM report that child sexual abuse material was sold online from hacked Hikvision cameras, and a catalogue of Dahua vulnerabilities including a 2025 buffer-overflow entry in the National Vulnerability Database (paras. 47 to 48), without alleging that any of them involved an ADI customer, and its own injury allegation is pleaded as "the risk of exposure" (para. 100).

So the theory in both cases is non-disclosure and deceptive marketing, not a completed interception. And neither prayer asks for a recall, a stop-use order, or any destruction of hardware.

As of October 10, 2026 we found no response from either company on its own newsroom page. Lorex's news blog's most recent entry is dated September 25, 2026 and concerns product coverage; ADI's company-headlines page stops at September 10, 2026. Neither mentions the Iowa suits. We checked those pages and searched for public statements; we did not contact either company's media relations and we did not check the Iowa court docket, so nothing here should be read as a report about what either company has filed in court. The marketing language the petitions quote was still live when we checked on October 10, 2026, including the Lorex privacy page's "top priority" sentence, the security page's "utmost priority" sentence, the NDAA disclaimer on the Lorex FAQ, and ADI's "safe, secure, comfortable and connected" line.

What the Law Actually Says

Both petitions ride on a single state statute, and it is worth understanding why the attorney general chose it.

Iowa Code section 714.16(2)(a) makes it an unlawful practice to use an unfair practice, deception, fraud, false pretense, false promise, or misrepresentation, or to conceal, suppress, or omit a material fact with intent that others rely on the omission, in connection with the lease, sale, or advertisement of any merchandise. The provision then adds the clause that does the heavy lifting: it applies "whether or not a person has in fact been misled, deceived, or damaged." The statute defines "deception" as an act or practice with "the tendency or capacity to mislead a substantial number of consumers as to a material fact or facts," and "unfair practice" as one causing "substantial, unavoidable injury to consumers that is not outweighed by any consumer or competitive benefits which the practice produces."

That is why a case about Chinese components can proceed without any evidence that a camera ever leaked anything. The question the statute asks is whether the company said something with the capacity to mislead, or stayed silent about something material. Whether the risk ever materialized is a different question, and not the one on the table.

Section 714.16(7) supplies the attorney general's toolkit. A Consumer Fraud Act action proceeds in equity. The attorney general may seek a temporary restraining order and preliminary or permanent injunctive relief, and the court may order whatever is necessary to restore money or property acquired through an unlawful practice, appoint a receiver for substantial and willful violations, or order disgorgement to the state where reimbursement would cost more than it returns to consumers. On top of that the court may impose a civil penalty of up to $40,000 per violation. Section 714.16A adds up to $5,000 more for each violation committed against an "older individual," which the statute defines as someone sixty or older, with that money going to an elderly victim fund and reimbursement to consumers taking priority over it.

Two limits in the same subsection deserve attention. Both petitions plead that each instance of the alleged practice is a separate violation of the Act (Lorex paras. 65, 68; ADI paras. 85, 90), which is how the State frames its penalty exposure. The penalty provision, though, says a course of conduct "shall not be considered to be separate and different violations merely because the conduct is repeated to more than one person," so the per-violation arithmetic is not simply the number of cameras sold. And the reliance carve-out cuts the other way: the State generally need not allege or prove reliance, damages, or intent to deceive, except in an action for concealment, suppression, or omission of a material fact with intent that others rely upon it. The omission counts, which are the heart of both cases, therefore carry an intent element the affirmative-misrepresentation counts do not.

Iowa consumers are not limited to waiting for the attorney general. Chapter 714H, the private route, lets a consumer who suffers an ascertainable loss of money or property sue for actual damages, with costs and reasonable attorney fees to a prevailing consumer and statutory damages of up to three times actual damages where a fact finder finds willful and wanton disregard for another's rights or safety. The chapter is narrower than the attorney general's authority in several ways that matter: "consumer" means a natural person, "consumer merchandise" means goods sold primarily for personal, family, or household purposes, "actual damages" excludes mental distress and bodily injury, the private prohibition in section 714H.3 requires that the defendant knew or reasonably should have known the practice was unfair or deceptive, and section 714H.5 sets a two-year limit running from the last event or from discovery, whichever is later. Section 714H.7 adds a wrinkle found in few states: a class action under the chapter cannot be filed without the attorney general's approval, which must be granted unless the attorney general finds the suit frivolous.

None of this is the body of law most readers reach for when they buy an indoor camera. If your question is where a camera may legally point and who has to know it is running, that is a different analysis, and what the law actually permits for a camera aimed at a child's room turns on consent and expectation of privacy rather than on supply-chain disclosure. Iowa's own rules on camera placement and recording are likewise untouched by these filings. And the rights an Iowan has to see, correct, or delete personal data held by a company come from a separate statute; the consumer rights Iowa's data privacy act creates are not what the attorney general is enforcing here.

Three federal lists, three different legal effects

Both petitions describe federal actions against Dahua and Hikvision, and press coverage tends to blend them into one "ban." They are three separate things with three separate consequences, and the difference is the difference between a national-security designation and a rule that touches your living room.

The first is the Department of Defense list under Section 1260H of the FY2021 National Defense Authorization Act. The current list, published in the Federal Register on June 10, 2026 at 91 FR 35189, names "Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co., Ltd." and "Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd." The stated basis for Dahua is indirect ownership by China's state asset commission and affiliation with its industry ministry; for Hikvision it is indirect state ownership, direct affiliation with the People's Liberation Army, and military-civil fusion funding. Section 1260H requires the Secretary of Defense to identify and publish that list. The notice is a designation, not a consumer-sales restriction.

The second is the Commerce Department's Entity List. Commerce added "Dahua Technology" and "Hikvision" on October 9, 2019 at 84 FR 54002, finding that they were "implicated in human rights violations and abuses" in China's surveillance campaign against Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang. The Entity List restricts exports, reexports, and in-country transfers of US-origin items to a listed company. It runs in the opposite direction from what most readers assume: it limits what American firms may send to Dahua, not what Dahua-derived products may be sold here.

The third is the only one that restricts what may be sold in the US market. Section 889 of the FY2019 NDAA, Public Law 115-232, defines video surveillance equipment produced by Hikvision or Dahua as covered equipment, but only "for the purpose of public safety, security of government facilities, physical security surveillance of critical infrastructure, and other national security purposes," and its prohibition binds the heads of executive agencies and the use of federal loan and grant funds. The Secure Equipment Act of 2021 then directed the FCC to stop granting equipment authorizations for anything on the Covered List, and in June 2026 the Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology went further and prohibited the continued importation and marketing of previously authorized covered equipment added in 2024 or earlier. That prohibition was published at 91 FR 41023 on July 6, 2026 and took effect on July 16, 2026.

That step is narrower than it sounds, and the limits are the part that matters to a household. The Covered List entry for Dahua video surveillance equipment, which the Lorex petition quotes at paragraph 35, has reached that equipment since March 12, 2021 only "to the extent it is used for the purpose of public safety, security of government facilities, physical security surveillance of critical infrastructure, and other national security purposes." The June 2026 notice carries that limit forward: for equipment covered only on a use basis, it says the import and marketing prohibitions "will apply only to equipment used for the purpose of public safety, security of government facilities, physical security surveillance of critical infrastructure, and other national security purposes," and the Bureau suspended the critical-infrastructure prong until the Commission adopts a definition of that term. Neither Iowa petition alleges that any Lorex or ADI camera sold to a consumer is Covered List equipment or is barred from sale. What they allege is that the companies did not disclose their suppliers' presence on these federal lists, or the vulnerabilities and foreign legal obligations that come with it.

The same FCC notice answers the question most camera owners will actually ask.

"consumers may continue to use any device or equipment that they currently possess, if the equipment was legally purchased and maintains an existing equipment authorization" Source: FCC Public Notice DA 26-635, PS Docket No. 26-72, at 7-8 (rel. June 26, 2026)

So the federal picture is an escalating set of restrictions on government buyers, on new authorizations, and now on imports and marketing. None of it makes it unlawful for a household to keep running a camera it already bought. For readers outside Iowa comparing their own state's approach, our state-by-state breakdown of camera rules covers the placement and consent side of the question these filings do not reach.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

The interesting thing about these two petitions is not the China angle, which has been the subject of federal lists for seven years. It is the venue. A state consumer-protection statute written to police false advertising is being pointed at a hardware supply chain, and the claim is not that the product failed but that the company never said where it came from.

That matters because of what it does to the burden. A security case would require proof that something happened: a breach, an interception, a transfer. A section 714.16 case asks whether the representation had the tendency or capacity to mislead a substantial number of consumers about a material fact, and the statute expressly says it applies whether or not anyone was in fact misled. The State has to prove materiality, and for the omission counts it has to prove intent that consumers rely on the silence. It does not have to prove that a single frame of anyone's footage left the house. Readers should hold both halves of that in mind: the lower burden is why the case can be brought, and it is also why a win would not amount to a finding that these cameras spied on anyone.

The gap between those two things is where coverage of this story goes wrong. The attorney general's October 9 release on Lorex describes cameras with serious security flaws that allow hackers, including those affiliated with China, to access video and audio feeds and archives. The ADI release goes further still, asserts in its headline and in the attorney general's quotation that the cameras make Iowans' private information available to the Chinese government and military, which is more than the ADI petition pleads. The pleadings describe documented vulnerabilities in a supplier's products, obligations Chinese companies owe to Chinese intelligence under a 2017 law, and a failure to disclose any of it. Those are different assertions with different evidentiary demands, and an Iowa court has been asked to resolve the second set, not the first. Nothing in either petition has been tested, and both companies are entitled to answer.

The notice request in the Lorex prayer is the part worth watching. Injunctions in consumer-fraud cases normally fix the future: change the label, change the website, stop saying the thing. Asking a court to order a company to write to every Iowan it can identify who bought or registered a camera reaches purchasers already in the installed base rather than only future marketing. It is a request in a prayer for relief, not an order, and ADI's prayer contains no equivalent.

The sequencing is worth setting out plainly, without reading motive into it. Iowa announced three China-related consumer fraud suits in four days: TP-Link Systems Inc. on October 6, 2026, ADI on October 7, and Lorex on October 9. The TP-Link release calls that suit "the first in a series of actions" the office would take against businesses aligned with Communist China over the following week, and the ADI release calls itself the second. Texas ran a comparable sequence eight months earlier, suing TP-Link on February 17, 2026, Anzu Robotics on February 18, and Lorex on February 19, with its own office describing three anti-CCP lawsuits in three days. Same first target, same third target, same statutory family. No document we reviewed says the two offices coordinated, or that either copied the other.

Nebraska has produced the one publicly announced outcome among these matters. That office sued Lorex on September 23, 2025 and Resideo and its ADI business on December 22, 2025 on essentially the same theory, including the same 2021 to 2022 Capture white-labeling allegation. On August 21, 2026 that office announced a finalized settlement with Resideo Technologies, Inc. and ADI Global Distribution LLC: the companies agreed to cease all sales of Hikvision and Dahua products in Nebraska, to pay the state's investigative costs and fees, and to contribute to a trust fund for refunds to purchasers of Hikvision, Dahua, and Capture-brand products, with a four-year purchase window for claims. Those are the terms the Nebraska release describes. It does not describe any court finding that a camera transmitted footage anywhere, and a settlement resolves claims rather than adjudicating them.

What none of this tells you is how the Iowa cases come out. Different state, different statute, different defendant entity after a corporate spin-off, and a pleading that in ADI's case stretches to a human-trafficking representation count that the Nebraska matter did not feature. The honest read as of October 10, 2026 is that two camera petitions are on the public record, three states have now used consumer-protection law to attack supply-chain silence rather than product failure, and one of those efforts has settled.

How This Affects You

Start with the question almost everyone asks first. If you own a Lorex camera, an ADI-distributed camera, or a Capture-brand camera, nothing in these filings makes owning or using it unlawful. Neither prayer for relief asks a court to order a recall, to bar continued use, or to require anyone to surrender hardware. The FCC said the same thing from the other direction in June 2026: its import and marketing prohibition does not reach devices consumers already possess that were legally purchased and hold an existing equipment authorization.

Nor does an Iowa filing give you money. These are state enforcement actions. Reimbursement and disgorgement under section 714.16(7) are remedies the court may order at the end of a case, and no court has ordered anything here. If a reimbursement program ever follows, it would be announced by the attorney general's office, not by a third-party site collecting your details. Treat any site that asks you to "file a claim" against Lorex or ADI today with suspicion.

There is one live refund path, and it is geographically limited. Under the August 21, 2026 Nebraska settlement, Nebraska residents and businesses that bought a Dahua or Hikvision product from Resideo or ADI within the prior four years were directed to the Nebraska Attorney General's own instructions for submitting a claim. That program belongs to Nebraska and does not extend to Iowa or anywhere else.

If you believe a camera's marketing misled you, Iowa gives consumers a route of their own rather than a share of the state's case. Chapter 714H permits a suit for actual damages where there has been an ascertainable loss of money or property, with fee shifting and up to treble statutory damages for willful and wanton conduct, but it runs on a two-year clock from the last event or from discovery, it excludes mental distress from recoverable damages, and a class action under it needs the attorney general's approval before filing. Whether any particular purchase supports such a claim is a question for a lawyer licensed in your state, not something a news article can answer.

General security hygiene for any internet-connected camera, from any manufacturer, is worth doing regardless of what happens in Polk County. Keep firmware current, since the vulnerabilities these petitions catalogue are the kind vendors patch. Replace default credentials and use a unique password with multifactor authentication where the app offers it. Turn off remote access and cloud features you do not actually use, and prefer local storage when it meets your needs. Put cameras in shared spaces rather than bedrooms and bathrooms, both for privacy and because that is where recording law is most restrictive. Keep cameras on a guest or separate network segment if your router supports it. None of that is a response to these lawsuits; it is the baseline for any device with a lens and a radio.

Finally, keep the two legal questions separate. These petitions are about what a seller told you. Whether you may record a given space, and who must be told, is governed by a different body of law entirely, and placement rules in your state do not change because a manufacturer is sued in Iowa.

This is general legal information, not legal advice. It covers Iowa civil enforcement under Iowa Code chapter 714 and the federal designations and FCC rules referenced in the two petitions, and reflects sources verified on October 10, 2026. Laws change and this story is developing; consult a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction about your specific situation.

Related articles

• Hidden cameras inside the home, and when they cross a line
• How Iowa treats security cameras, from porches to workplaces
• What the ICDPA gives Iowa consumers over their personal data
• Camera rules, compared across all fifty states
• Where each state stands on consumer data privacy

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Last updated: 2026-10-10. This is a developing story; details verified as of 2026-10-10.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is my Lorex baby monitor illegal now?

No. Neither Iowa petition asks for a recall, a ban on use, or destruction of hardware, and no court has ordered anything. The FCC's June 26, 2026 public notice (DA 26-635) states that consumers may continue to use equipment they already possess if it was legally purchased and holds an existing equipment authorization.

Did the Iowa attorney general prove these cameras sent footage to China?

No. These are petitions, which are allegations, and no Iowa court has made any finding. Neither petition identifies a specific incident in which an Iowan's footage was accessed or sent to China. Both plead that the collected information is susceptible to being accessed, that Hikvision and Dahua equipment has documented vulnerabilities, and that the companies failed to disclose who built the hardware.

What law is Iowa suing under?

The Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, Iowa Code section 714.16, in the Iowa District Court for Polk County. Section 714.16(2)(a) covers deception, misrepresentation, and the omission of a material fact with intent that others rely on it, in connection with the sale or advertisement of merchandise, whether or not any consumer was actually misled.

How much money is at stake?

Section 714.16(7) allows a civil penalty of up to $40,000 per violation, plus reimbursement and disgorgement, and section 714.16A allows up to $5,000 more per violation against a consumer aged sixty or older. The same subsection limits the arithmetic, though: a course of conduct is not separate violations merely because it is repeated to more than one person.

Can I get a refund as an Iowa buyer?

Not today. Reimbursement is relief a court may order at the end of a Consumer Fraud Act case, and these cases are at the pleading stage as of October 10, 2026. Any Iowa program would be announced by the attorney general's office.

Is there a refund program anywhere?

Yes, in Nebraska only. Under a settlement that office finalized on August 21, 2026, Resideo and ADI Global Distribution LLC agreed to stop selling Hikvision and Dahua products in Nebraska and to fund refunds for purchasers of Hikvision, Dahua, and Capture-brand products bought in the prior four years, with claims handled by the Nebraska Attorney General's office.

Can an individual consumer sue over this in Iowa?

Iowa Code chapter 714H gives a consumer with an ascertainable loss of money or property a private action for actual damages, costs and attorney fees, and up to treble statutory damages for willful and wanton conduct. It carries a two-year limitation period, excludes mental distress from damages, and under section 714H.7 a class action requires the attorney general's approval before it may be filed.

What is the difference between the Entity List, the DoD list, and the FCC Covered List?

The Commerce Entity List (84 FR 54002, October 9, 2019) restricts US exports to Dahua and Hikvision over Xinjiang human-rights findings. The Department of Defense Section 1260H list (91 FR 35189, June 10, 2026) publicly designates them as Chinese military companies. The FCC Covered List, backed by Section 889 and the Secure Equipment Act of 2021, is the one that restricts the US market: since July 16, 2026 the continued import and marketing of previously authorized covered equipment listed in 2024 or earlier is prohibited. For the Dahua and Hikvision video surveillance entry added on March 12, 2021, that entry and the prohibition reach the equipment only when it is used or marketed for public safety, government-facility security, physical security surveillance of critical infrastructure or other national security purposes, and the FCC suspended the critical-infrastructure prong until it defines that term. Neither Iowa petition alleges that a camera sold to a consumer is barred from sale.

Have Lorex or ADI responded?

We found no statement on either company's own newsroom page as of October 10, 2026. Lorex's news blog's latest item is dated September 25, 2026 and ADI's company-headlines page stops at September 10, 2026, and neither addresses the Iowa filings. We did not check the Iowa court docket or contact either company, so this is not a report that neither company has responded in court or elsewhere.

Is this the first case like this?

No. Nebraska sued Lorex on September 23, 2025 and Resideo and its ADI business on December 22, 2025, settling with Resideo and ADI in August 2026. Texas sued Lorex on February 19, 2026 in Collin County as the third of three suits in three days against China-aligned companies.