IT is the Chinese whisper that keeps echoing louder and louder through the English-speaking world’s intelligence alliance.
For months cybersecurity agencies in America, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have been warning against letting international Telecoms equipment giant Huawei provide technology for the next generation of mobile internet, 5G.
Why? Because Huawei is headquartered in Shenzhen, and could, agencies like the CIA believe, become a kind of digital Trojan horse for Chinese spies and hackers in the West.
The UK has now signalled it will let Huawei provide some of its tech. At least that was what the The Daily Telegraph suggested on Wednesday in a front-page news story. Some intelligence observers suggested this could mark a split between Britain and four of the other “Five Eyes”, America, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
UK officials were quick to say any final decision would be announced at Westminster, not in the papers. But the director GCHQ, Jeremy Fleming, at a rare public speech said engineering is more important than the country behind the technology, otherwise known as its “flag of origin”.
Speaking at CyberUK, a major conference organised by the Natioan Cyber Security Centre, in Glasgow, Mr Fleming said: “A flag of origin of 5G equipment is important but it is a secondary factor.
“It’s a hugely complex strategic challenge, going to span the next few decades. How we deal with it will be crucial for our prosperity and for our security.”
The US has banned Huawei from its government networks and urged the other nations in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance - the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada - to do the same.
There were signs of a softening of the American stance on Huawei at CyberUK as - for the first time in the UK all Five Eyes stared out from a public stage.
Rob Joyce, of US National Security Agency, said what really mattered was “what is a sensitive network”. British officials made it clear that defending sensitive networks was not just about where hardware was bought.
After all, the technology for a gaming network and a secret government project may not be different. Encryption and other solutions may be more important.
Five Eyes officials put on a united front in Glasgow, agreeing that sometimes they had to call out state actors who were behind hacking or election interference, not least the big four: Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
Huawei has denied having ties to the Chinese government, but critics question how independent any large Chinese company can be, with a legal obligation on firms to co-operate with the state.
Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Tugendhat said opening the door to Huawei “would cause allies to doubt our ability to keep data secure”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel