New Twist in Huawei Spying Game - Security Concerns Remain
As of April 2020, Huawei is now the worlds largest smartphone manufacturer - even ahead of Samsung and Apple. This is even more surprising now that many customers are looking for phones not made in china. But it seems the allure of cheap handsets beats out security concerns for many.
The USA has long accused Huawei of spying and links to the Chinese military. Should you purchase a Huawei phone if you are cocerned about privacy? Absolutely not.
The US government is actively pushing for citizens to only buy cell phones not made in china.
Company founder Ren Zhengfei was member of China's army, the People's Liberation Army, for nine years until 1983. He is also a member of China's Communist party. Huawei’s response: "When Ren Zhengfei was a young man, you needed to be a Communist Party member to have any position of responsibility."
The USA has banned domestic firms from doing business with Huawei, and is pushing for allies to ban the company from 5G networks. Australia and New Zealand have joined the US. Germany nearly reaching a full ban last month.
The USA argues China's 2017 National Intelligence Law, which states organisations must "support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work", highlight how Beijing could force Huawei to do its bidding.
Your phone is tracking you in many ways - depending on granting permissions for your apps, it can track websites you visit, locations or sometimes audio.
Huawei phones very likely share the firm's handing your data with the Chinese government. Though it is worth baring that in the same way data from an iphone could be handed over to the US government. Last year Google halted Huawei's licence for Android.
To monitor Huawei , the British Government set up the ‘Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre’, falling under the National Cyber Security Centre. They have identified serious defects in Huawei's software engineering and cyber-security competence.
A new US rule for Huawei has been introduced to help develop standards, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross quited, adding that security concerns remain over the telecoms equipment maker.
The US Defense Department also realesed a list of Chinese companies that operate in the US and have been linked to the Chinese military public this week. Published by Axios and other media outlets this week. It was required as part of the 1999 National Defense Authorization Act but only now was assembled, according to Axios.
The National Defense Authorization Act calls on the Defence department to determine and publish "Communist Chinese military companies operating in the United States," or any other commercial entity that is "owned or controlled by the People's Liberation Army."
This act states that the US president has the authority to impose sanctions on any of the companies listed, which include Huawei, as well as Hikvision, which was blacklisted by the US in October 2019 for creating surveillance tools that aided in the oppression of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.
Made in China. Worth it?
With just the possibility of your handset sharing information with a foreign government or military, we ask is the cheaper price worth it?
We’ve created a list of some great Huawei alternatives from South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. None of these manufacturers have been involved with spying allegations as Chinese handsets have been.
Chinese phones might be cheaper but the alternatives are made to the same quality standards or higher, and besides lacking the security concerns they are made in countries with ethical manufacturing standards and upholding actual human rights for its workers. We urge you to consider these companies instead of those manufacturing in China:
Huawei
ZTE
Xiaomi
OnePlus
Motorola
TCL
Apple
Google.