Richmond Council is installing cameras across the borough produced by a Chinese firm criticised for using facial recognition technology.

The council, in partnership with Wandsworth Council, has agreed a five year contract worth £1.3m to use surveillance systems created by Dahua Technology.

The deal includes the establishment of a joint control room which records all the images collected by the cameras. The resulting images can be viewed by the police.

Dahua, which is China's second-largest surveillance equipment maker, is banned from selling its cameras in the USA on the basis of claims they create a security risk.

Richmond Council has confirmed the details of the contract, however it insists the system being deployed, which involves hundreds of cameras, does not include facial recognition.

Britons largely assume that China is the ultimate surveillance state, but London has more CCTV cameras per person than Beijing.

The American organisation IVMP, who are experts in CCTV, said the deal with Richmond and Wandsworth Councils raises risks.

It reported: "A project this large is significant for Dahua, particularly outside of China, but risky for the local councils, given Dahua's poor human rights and cybersecurity track records."

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Richmond Council said: "The cameras themselves just capture the images - facial recognition would be done by recorders and servers, if they had facial recognition capabilities. However, the Council's network has no facial recognition capability.

"The Council takes all steps to ensure we are compliant with relevant legislation and guidance.

"The data owners remain the Council for all images recorded. We have processes in place to share the images with the police when required."