NDAA Statement

Published 9 September 2026 · Reviewed annually

Prism Integrated Security Solutions Ltd (“Prism”, “we”, “us”) is asked, with increasing regularity, whether the systems we install are “NDAA-compliant”. The question comes from customers with US Government contracts or US parent companies, from insurers and landlords, and from people who simply want to know that the cameras watching their premises were not made by a company a government has chosen to exclude. This statement sets out what the term means and what we can, and cannot, say about our own work.

1. What Section 889 is

Section 889 of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 is a United States federal law. It prohibits US federal agencies from buying, and from contracting with any organisation that uses, “covered telecommunications equipment or services” as a substantial or essential component of any system. The equipment covered is that produced by five named companies and their subsidiaries and affiliates:

• Huawei Technologies Company
• ZTE Corporation
• Hytera Communications Corporation
• Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company
• Dahua Technology Company

The prohibition on agencies buying such equipment took effect in August 2019; the wider prohibition on agencies contracting with organisations that use it took effect in August 2020. The Act names the companies rather than the products, so it reaches equipment those companies make for sale under other brand names as well as under their own.

Section 889 does not bind a UK business directly. It binds our customers where they hold or seek US federal contracts, and it has become the shorthand the security industry uses worldwide for a supply chain free of those manufacturers. UK Government guidance has moved in the same direction: since 2022, departments have been instructed not to deploy surveillance equipment from manufacturers subject to China’s National Intelligence Law at sensitive sites.

2. The Ajax platform

The intruder alarm, fire detection, video and MediCare systems we design and install are built on the Ajax Systems platform: the hub, detectors, sirens, keypads, cameras and network video recorder are all Ajax products, designed and manufactured by Ajax in Europe. Ajax has published its own statement regarding Section 889, which states that none of its products contain parts from the manufacturers named in Section 889 or their affiliates, and that Ajax uses no equipment, system or service that incorporates such parts as a critical, substantial or essential component.

We rely on that statement. A system we design and install entirely from the Ajax range is, to the best of our knowledge and on the manufacturer’s published word, NDAA-compliant, and we will say so in writing for a specific project on request.

3. Systems we quote as NDAA-compliant

Where a customer tells us that NDAA compliance is a requirement, we design the system to meet it and we say on the quotation that we have. Such a system is built only from equipment whose manufacturer has published, or given us in writing, a statement that its products contain no Section 889 covered equipment. We hold copies of those statements and will supply them with the quotation. The requirement extends to everything on the system that carries a signal — the network switches, the recorder and the door entry equipment as much as the cameras and detectors — because Section 889 is concerned with the whole system, not with the part that has the lens.

A quotation that does not say the system is NDAA-compliant makes no representation either way. If it matters to you, tell us before we design, not after we install.

4. Where we cannot make the claim

We are an installer and maintainer, not a manufacturer, and our work is wider than the Ajax range. Three cases deserve plain words:

• Other manufacturers’ video systems. Ajax is our preferred platform for every site, whatever its size, but we support video surveillance systems from other manufacturers — Hikvision, Dahua, Axis, Avigilon, VideoEdge, Exacqvision and others — and some of those manufacturers are named in Section 889. We will not describe such a system as NDAA-compliant, and where a customer has told us the requirement applies we will not propose equipment from any manufacturer the section names.
• Systems we take over or maintain. We maintain, and take into our care, systems installed by other companies, whatever they are built from. Taking over a system does not change what it is made of. Our takeover report records the equipment installed; it does not represent that equipment as compliant, and neither does a service plan on it.
• Equipment the customer supplies. Where a customer asks us to fit equipment they have bought themselves, the representation about that equipment is the customer’s, not ours.

5. Written representations

A general statement on a website is not a certificate. Where you need a representation you can rely on — for a procurement questionnaire, an insurer, a landlord or a US parent company — ask us for one for the specific system, and we will provide it in writing naming every product on the system and the manufacturer statement each one rests on. Ask through the contact page or through whoever is handling your quotation.

6. Review

This statement describes our position on the date it was published. Manufacturers change their supply chains and governments change their lists, so we review it annually and whenever the range we install changes materially. A written representation for a specific system is made as at its own date and stands on the facts then, not on this page.