The latest sighting of Chinese spy balloons is closer to home than some might expect. Campaign group Big Brother Watch flew spoof spy balloons over Parliament Square this morning, to raise awareness of the “widespread, intrusive and panoptic use of surveillance cameras in the UK made by Chinese state-owned companies”. The group was joined by activists from Free Tibet and Stop Uyghur Genocide. Despite a mild breeze, which made the balloons somewhat unruly, the event got off to a flying start.

Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael popped over to support the campaign – he’s just one of the 67 parliamentarians who have signed up to Big Brother Watch‘s pledge to ban Chinese state-owned surveillance cameras. Watch this space.

Though, the Government has so far failed to act – they even overturned a cross-party amendment to the Procurement Bill which would have put a timeline on the removal of surveillance tech companies linked to crimes against humanity from the government supply chain. Silkie Carlo, Director of Big Brother Watch said:

“This digital asbestos raises serious security and privacy risks for millions of people in Britain, with the majority of public authorities’ CCTV cameras made by Chinese state-owned firms. By spending millions on Chinese-made tech to build a surveillance state at home, the UK government is indirectly supporting China’s crimes against humanity and ethnic persecution overseas.”

That’ll go down like a lead balloon in Whitehall.

Co-conspirators can find a petition calling on a UK ban on Chinese surveillance tech here.