The latest smartphone from Chinese tech giant Huawei, the P30 is labelled to have the best camera zoom feature ever assembled in a mobile device. Throngs of early buyers and journalist have been posting comparison images on their social media pages on the capability its 50x zoom, on things like the full moon, wild birds and balconies of neighbouring apartments. While the voyeuristic feature is lauded by the fans, a bigger threat looms about the spying nature of the equipment’s Huawei is shipping out to telecommunication companies across the globe.
Just as recent, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) told the UK Intelligence that the Chinese state security including the People’s Liberation Army and National Security Commission has been funding Huawei for supposedly to carry out such acts. According to a source who told The Times, the CIA has informed the Five Eye, a consortium of 5 nations including Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia on the revelations, expect to see more actions in coming days.
A Huawei spokesperson has come out claiming such allegations are unsubstantiated with zero evidence and based of anonymous sources. However, there has been proof uncovered by British agencies on equipment’s supplied by Huawei to have potential security risks but stopped short of detailing if they were used for spying. With what could potentially be recorded in history as the largest state funded espionage threat ever if all the allegations are true, the Huawei saga leaves a lot to ponder even if it turns out to be a wild goose chase because now we know such possibility are real these sort of threats are imminent.
Malaysia is about to embark on a digital transformational journey and the Communication Ministry has announced that the enabler to make this possible will be the fifth generation telecommunication evolution or 5G. Wireless speeds can reach gigabyte level and is seen as the fuel to kick start many new industrial technology like automation, smart city and driverless cars. But these would also mean zetabyte of data being sent and stored, the question will be by who, where and will they be kept safe?
What we can hope amidst this whole spy game drama is on whether our Government and the network operator’s have done their due diligence on the 5G vendors, before handing over the nations most valuable asset, its data to foreign entities.
