Amazon, Flipkart Purge 700+ Unlicensed Camera Listings in $4.4B India Market

For e-commerce operators, a marketplace is only as trustworthy as its worst seller. With India's April BIS mandate now in force, Amazon and Flipkart are discovering that high-volume electronics categories require automated, pre-listing compliance checks—not after-the-fact takedowns.

Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart have begun scrutinizing security camera listings on their Indian marketplaces after a Reuters analysis found that more than 700 of roughly 770 internet-enabled surveillance cameras offered on the two platforms were not included in the Bureau of Indian Standards' public database of approved brands and models. The review, confirmed by two people familiar with the checks, targets unlicensed devices being sold despite a mandatory certification regime that took effect in April 2026. Since Tuesday, September 29, at least a dozen listings have been removed, including at least two models from Hikvision, according to the report.

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India's security camera market is worth $4.4 billion, and cameras have become ubiquitous across roads and homes.

The compliance gap is striking in scale: roughly 91% of sampled camera listings lacked BIS approval. India's security camera market is worth $4.4 billion, and cameras have become ubiquitous across roads and homes. The rules, first announced in 2024, require surveillance camera manufacturers to submit hardware and software for testing and obtain BIS certification before selling equipment in the world's most populous country. The mandate directly responds to national-security fears that sensitive footage could be exfiltrated abroad. In April 2026, Delhi police disclosed a Pakistan-linked espionage network that used Chinese-made SIM-enabled CCTVs near military sites in northern India to transmit live footage to handlers in Pakistan.

For Amazon and Flipkart, the episode exposes a structural weakness in marketplace governance for high-risk connected devices. Both platforms dominate Indian e-commerce and rely heavily on third-party sellers, yet the Reuters data shows that pre-listing compliance checks were either missing or ineffective for a category now subject to mandatory certification. Amazon declined to comment and Flipkart did not respond to Reuters queries, but the removal of at least a dozen listings since Tuesday signals initial remediation. The companies face reputational damage, potential regulatory penalties under Indian consumer-protection and telecom rules, and the operational cost of building automated certification verification into seller onboarding and catalog management.

From a national-security and cybersecurity standpoint, the risk extends beyond the retail transaction. Gulshan Rai, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cybersecurity chief from 2015 to 2019, called unapproved sales a "serious concern" and warned that "a compromised camera can become both a surveillance risk and a cybersecurity entry point." Uncertified IoT cameras may ship with weak default credentials, unpatched firmware, unencrypted telemetry, or deliberate backdoors. They can be conscripted into botnets, used for reconnaissance, or serve as pivots into home and enterprise networks. The Pakistan-linked case demonstrates that these are not hypothetical risks: Chinese-made SIM-enabled CCTVs were allegedly used to send live footage to handlers abroad.

The BIS certification regime is a meaningful but incomplete control. It requires hardware and software testing before sale, which should filter out devices with obvious vulnerabilities or undeclared functionality. However, certification is a point-in-time gate, not continuous security assurance. Unlicensed cameras already sold and installed across India remain in operation, and there is no clear mechanism in the sources for recalling or remotely disabling them. Consumers may not know their devices are uncertified, and enforcement against downstream users is unlikely.