What are the risks of allowing Huawei into the nation’s telecommunication infrastructure?
The UK Government’s recent approval of Huawei’s technology being used in 5G network installation has not been taken entirely well. Despite pressure from the United States in curbing the Chinese telecom giant’s increasing influence, the UK is confident that the risks of allowing foreign technology to influence key national infrastructure can be avoided completely. What, then, would the risks to our national security entail? How does the government intend to mitigate these risks? What is the US’s stake in this?
My way or the Huawei
The US’s pressure on its allies in blacklisting Huawei stems from its own ban on Huawei tech in its infrastructure. This is, in part if not mostly, due to rising fears that the technology could be exploited by the Chinese Government to conduct espionage and surveillance activities. This was further exacerbated last May when the US government required local companies wanting to sell to Huawei to obtain government authorisation before contracting with the telecom giant, crippling Huawei’s expansion efforts into the American continent. The company has hit back with denials, citing a lack of proof by the US demonstrating a verifiable security risk and highlighting the US’s hypocrisy in allowing the NSA to conduct global surveillance activities. Meanwhile, the US continues to urge its allies in supporting its restrictions on the technology giant.
(Hua)Weighing the pros and cons
Experts in security have contemplated the security risks of allowing Huawei into national infrastructure, and they are right to be concerned. Despite Huawei’s repeated claims of divesting itself from the Chinese Government, it is hard to deny that China’s looming legislative influence casts a shadow on the reliability of Huawei’s claims. In a Verge article, security concerns are encapsulated by Senator Marco Rubio of the United States: “…I am not sure we can trust an audit on Huawei any more than we can trust the Chinese Government to hand over intelligence showing they do not steal intellectual property from American companies.” The lack of transparency and subsequent trust in both Huawei and the country backing it is stopping the technology giant from further expansion.
However, Britain believes that an outright ban on Huawei would prevent the availability of a 5G network by 2 or 3 years, damaging the prospects of healthy economic growth. Britain is also pursuing other methods of limiting potential Chinese influence and espionage activity through Huawei’s installation of their technology. For starters, “no single high risk vendor” is permitted to exceed a 35% market share threshold of the network, in order to encourage development by other companies. Britain promised to introduce new legislation to protect the 35% market cap, and will also rely on Ofcom, the nation’s communications regulator, to enforce the restrictions. In addition, Huawei will be banned from installing infrastructure at sensitive locations like nuclear or military facilities, to prevent any potential incursions into the inner workings of such facilities. These restrictions also prevent Huawei from accessing storage servers, instead permitting them only to installation of equipment intended to send data directly to consumer devices.
How effective are the regulations in place?
Britain’s cautious approach stands in contrast with the US’s more reactionary stance; approval of Huawei’s incursion into the setup of nationwide 5G capabilities only came after years of stringent testing conducted by the government in order to detect the possibility of espionage by the company’s equipment. The UK is also part of the Five Eyes, a 5-way surveillance alliance between the largest English-speaking countries around the world (US, UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada), and will work with their partners in removing “high-risk vendors” from their communications systems. Per the CEO of OpenVPN, Francis Dinha, there will always be security risks in upgrading to a 5G network, regardless of the identity of the network installers. The regulations put in place by the UK Government will only be effective if the country’s citizens are proactive in keeping their systems secure. Perhaps it is only until that happens that the UK’s greenlighting of Huawei be met with more widespread approval.
by Ronald Poh