UK Government Ditched Chinese-Made Video Conferencing Equipment Because of Security Concerns

January 13, 2014

Did Chinese spies bug the Home Office during secret meetings about the running of the country?

Lee Harpin

The Mirror, January 12, 2014

Government chiefs fear secret meetings about the running of the country may have been bugged by Chinese spies.

Whitehall bosses got so worried top level discussions were being eavesdropped they ordered the removal of suspect video conferencing devices.

The Home Office, the Ministry for Justice and the Crown Prosecution Service are among government departments believed to have dumped the technology supplied by Chinese telecoms giant Huawei.

The firm, founded by an ex-member of the People’s Liberation Army, has already been banned from some sensitive contracts in the US and Australia over fears its equipment can be remotely intercepted.

Huawei, which has links to China’s Government and military, was the subject of a cyber security review last year involving GCHQ, the country’s intelligence and eavesdropping centre.

The company has been active here since 2005 when it signed a multi-billion pound deal to provide networking equipment to BT. It has been embraced by David Cameron and George Osborne as a major investor in Britain.

Mr Osborne was even pictured laughing and joking with founder Ren Zhengfei on a trade visit to China last year. But ­intelligence chiefs have been more wary of the company and its plans to spend £1.3billion growing its UK operations.

The Sunday Mirror understands the Ministry of Justice first bought video conferencing equipment from Huawei in the autumn of 2011 to link up top level meetings around the country.

Huawei’s online brochure shows how offices in London, Newcastle, Liverpool and Birmingham are linked up and ­broadcasts transmitted between meetings within “one millisecond”.

Other impressed government ­departments followed suit. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) uses telecoms devices made by Huawei, prompting fears of interceptions from China.

Acting on specific intelligence, a top level briefing was sent out to the Whitehall ­departments informing them to stop using the video conferencing ­equipment. There is no suggestion Huawei is directly involved in any suspicious activity – but there are concerns about “vulnerabilities” in its equipment.

Huawei has always strongly denied having close ties to the Chinese state and has stressed that it is 98.8 per cent owned by its employees.

But China expert Roderic Wye, who was head of the Foreign Office’s Asia research group, said there had long been fears about the firm’s operations.Technology: Ren Zhengfel CEO of Huawei

He said: “It’s a matter of record that the United States and Australia have had real concerns about Huawei. The UK has been rather more open and there is quite a bit of Huawei investment in this country.

“But there clearly remain concerns over how close the relationship is between Huawei and the Chinese government – and whether it could be a risk using the firm’s technology in ­sensitive areas.” The Government review last year looked at Huawei’s involvement in a cyber security centre set up test the firm’s equipment for breaches. The review followed a damning report by the Parliamentary intelligence and security committee into the way the ­Coalition handled contracts with Huawei.

It highlighted potential risks to national security and recommended the cyber security centre should be staffed by GCHQ and not Huawei employees.

The committee, chaired by the former Tory foreign and defence secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, said security could be compromised and provide China with “an attractive espionage opportunity”.

But following the review by the National Security Advisor, the Government rejected calls for the cyber centre in Banbury, Oxfordshire, to come under GCHQ control.

Former CIA head Michael Hayden said last year there was hard evidence that Huawei had spied on behalf of the Chinese state. He added: “At a minimum, Huawei would have shared with the Chinese state intimate and extensive knowledge of the foreign telecommunications systems it is involved with.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “We do not have any contracts with this company.” Huawei was unavailable for comment.