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Chinese mobile and networking company Huawei has rebutted claims it’s an arm of the Chinese government before, but now it’s offered its firmest denial yet.
It’s never even been asked to hand over customer data, it says, let alone has it volunteered to do so. In a cyber security white paper (PDF download), Ken Hu, deputy chairman of Huawei’s board, sets out to quell these claims once and for all.
“We can confirm that we have never received any instructions or requests from any government of their agencies to change our positions, policies, procedures, hardware, software or employment practices or anything else, other than suggestions to improve our end-to-end cyber security capability,” the statement reads.
“We can confirm that we have never been asked to provide access to our technology, or provide any data or information on any citizen or organisation to any government, or their agencies.”
Sounds pretty final to me.
Last year the American government claimed Huawei was a risk to national security. Following an 11-month fact-finding mission, the US House Intelligence Committee urged businesses to “find another vendor if you care about your intellectual property, if you care about your consumers’ privacy, and if you care about the national security of the United States of America.”
On these shores, meanwhile, Huawei has been accused of “controlling” the kind of Web filter that David Cameron wants made mandatory in his crusade against Internet porn. TalkTalk has confirmed Huawei helps maintain the list of blocked URLs on its filter, and both companies can add or remove sites as they see fit. Cameron has said TalkTalk has shown “great leadership” in promoting its filter, so its ilk could be imposed on us all before too long.
Do you believe Huawei? Do you think there’s something fishy going on? Or is it just scaremongering by the US? Let me know in the comments, or on our spy-free Facebook page.
