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A study has found that U.S. warnings of espionage by Huawei fail to deter governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America from hiring the Chinese technology group for cloud infrastructure and e-government services.
The Washington-based CSIS think tank report, seen by the Financial Times, identified 70 bids in 41 countries between Huawei and governments or state-owned companies for these services from 2006 to April this year.
Cloud infrastructure usually refers to the installation of data centers, while e-government consists primarily of automating administrative functions such as licensing, healthcare, legal records, and other government processes.
“Huawei’s cloud infrastructure and e-government services manage sensitive data on citizens’ health, taxes and legal records, ”according to the study.
“As Huawei dedicates a supplier niche to governments and state-owned enterprises, it is building a strategic position that can provide the Chinese authorities with valuable intelligence and even coercive leverage,” the study added.
Most of the countries involved in these agreements with Huawei were in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, and 77% of them fell into the “not free” or “partially free” categories, according to Freedom’s rating. House, a U.S. government-funded democracy watchdog group.
“With an increase in bids announced since 2018, including several announcements during 2020, it is clear that warnings against Huawei’s security risks are not persuading decision makers in developing countries,” he said. CSIS report, written by Jonathan Hillman and Maesea McCalpin.
“As a provider of cloud services and infrastructure, Huawei does not own or control any customer data,” Huawei said in a statement.
“All customer data is the property of our customers and is fully controlled by them.”
“Cyber security and protecting users’ privacy remain Huawei’s top priorities, ”the company added.
The United States has repeatedly accused Huawei of spying on the Chinese government, sometimes exploiting the “back doors” of telecommunications on their computers. Washington has also placed Huawei and many of its affiliates in a “list of entities”, Restricting the sale of critical technologies such as semiconductors in the company.
China has repeatedly dismissed these allegations as unfounded and accused the United States of “abuse of national power” in imposing sanctions on Huawei. The Chinese champion, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, has had to trim smartphone production due to shortage of supply.
The CSIS report cited several examples of security deficiencies associated with Huawei’s cloud infrastructure and e-government services. A 65-page report funded by the Australian government found it contained a data center built by Huawei for Papua New Guinea flagrant errors this would have made the installation vulnerable to hackers.
Huawei also won a contract to install communications equipment at the African Union building headquarters in Addis Ababa in 2012. African Union officials later accused China to hack the building’s computer systems every night for five years and download confidential data.
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© Financial Times
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