Reports have leaked that the UK government is preparing to allow Huawei to build part of the new 5G network.
However, the United States accuses Huawei of possibly introducing openings to collect data from its users, or even to be able to disable access to the network.
This endangers the alliance of the Five Eyes, or more properly in English the Five Eyes group. Five Eyes consists of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Huawei is an increasingly important company in China but also in the world. They employ 80,000 people in research and development alone.
Another telling statistic is that they are responsible for 1 in 10 patents issued by China. In total over the course of 2018, 53,345 patents were registered by China, just 3,000 fewer than in the US.
The UK’s electronic intelligence authorities, including the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) agency, assure that letting Huawei build portions of the 5G network is compliant with security standards and anti-espionage precautions.
Huawei has no further interest in harvesting data, because if any trace of such malfeasance were found, the brand would lose all its business. And no trace has been found despite searches for over 8 years.
Huawei is being tested in another controversy: the daughter of its founder, Ren Zhengfei, has been arrested in Canada at the request of the United States. She would have with the help of the company Huawei conspired to circumvent the sanctions affecting Iran. Huawei is also accused of having tried to steal the trade secrets of the company T-Mobile.
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