The Australian government says the Department of Defence will remove any security cameras made in China from its buildings to ensure they are “completely secure.”

The United States and the United Kingdom have also taken steps to ban Chinese-made cameras at sensitive sites out of fear that Chinese companies could be forced to share intelligence with Beijing’s security services. This led to the decision to remove the camera equipment.

On Thursday, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said of the decision, “It’s a significant thing that’s been brought to our attention, and we’re going to fix it.”

Marles told the national TV station ABC, “It’s important that we go through this exercise and make sure that our facilities are completely secure.”

Official numbers show that at least 913 cameras made in China were installed in more than 250 Australian government buildings, including the defence, foreign affairs, finance, and attorney general departments.

Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology and Dahua Technology Co. made cameras and other security equipment used in almost every department except for the Agriculture Department and the Prime Minister and Cabinet Department.

Chinese companies Hikvision and Dahua, which the Chinese government partly owns, have been put on a blacklist in the US for allegedly helping the Chinese government use “high-tech surveillance” to “repress” the Uighur minority in the Xinjiang region.

In July of last year, 67 members of parliament and the House of Lords in the UK asked the government to ban Hikvision and Dahua after hearing that their equipment had been used to track Uighurs.

Hikvision said that calling the company “a threat to national security” was “categorically false.”

Read Related Also: Ademola Adeleke sacks 20,000 Osun youths, unveils new ‘Imole’ scheme

“No respected technical institution or assessment has come to this conclusion,” the company told AFP news agency. “Our products are compliant with all applicable Australian laws and regulations and are subject to strict security requirements.”

When asked for a comment, the Chinese embassy in Australia didn’t answer right away.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he wasn’t worried about how China would react if the cameras were taken down.

“We act in accordance with Australia’s national interest. We do so transparently and that’s what we will continue to do,” Albanese told the press.

In 2018, Australia was one of the first places in the world to stop the Chinese company Huawei from using its 5G mobile network. Similar bans on Huawei are now in place in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. These three countries, along with New Zealand and Australia, make up the secretive Five Eyes spying alliance.

James Paterson, the cybersecurity spokesman for the opposition Liberal Party, said that he had asked questions for six months that led to the audit because the Department of Home Affairs couldn’t say how many cameras, access control systems, and intercoms made in China were installed in Australian government buildings.

Paterson said, “We urgently need a plan from the … government to rip every one of these devices out of Australian government departments and agencies.”

He said that China’s National Intelligence Law, which both companies had to follow, required them to work with Chinese intelligence agencies.

Paterson said, “We would have no way of knowing if the sensitive information, images and audio collected by these devices are secretly being sent back to China against the interests of Australian citizens.”