As the UK government prepares to allow Huawei to help build a key part of the nation's infrastructure, US officials have warned that bringing in the Chinese firm could jeopardize transatlantic intelligence sharing. Senior US officials visited London on Monday with a final plea to ban Huawei from its 5G rollout in the country.
The officials handed over a dossier of technical information that the sources said cast doubt on their own technical assessment and British intelligence's conclusions that Huawei could be recruited to build 5G infrastructure without risking national security. American sources refused to comment on the contents of the file, only saying that continuing on the chosen path is βnothing less than madness.β
Britain is currently considering whether Huawei equipment can be used to build 5G infrastructure. Proponents argue that the company's equipment can be used in non-core areas, keeping the network secure. But the US warns that the implications of the transition to 5G are so poorly understood that the safest and best solution is to keep the Chinese company out of the picture altogether.
The head of Britain's MI5 security service, Andrew Parker, has dismissed suggestions intelligence sharing between the UK and US could be disrupted if Chinese telecoms giant Huawei builds the UK's 5G network: "Perhaps an issue that needs deeper attention and discussion is "is how to get to a future where there is more competition... than a yes-or-no answer to Chinese technology."
Huawei insists it has never built any Chinese government backdoors into its technology and has offered to sign a βno-espionage agreementβ with countries that accept it. The firm's former chairman, Liang Hua, commenting on fears that the Chinese government might be acting at the hands of Huawei, said last May that "there are no laws requiring companies to collect intelligence from foreign governments."
Source: 3dnews.ru