A University of Toronto lab doing cybersecurity research says Huawei has so many cybersecurity and geopolitical issues that it’s almost certain the U.S. government will ban Huawei equipment from Canada’s 5G network.
According to a report on Huawei and 5G technology published by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto and reported in The Globe and Mail, the government should conduct network security tests on 5G equipment from all vendors, saying that excluding Huawei is not enough to protect Canada’s networks. Huawei’s Western competitors should be encouraged to do research in Canada, and Canadian universities should be provided with defensive briefings on establishing research partnerships with companies that could jeopardize national security.
Christopher Parsons, the report’s author, said that he expects the Canadian government to ban Huawei equipment, especially if the U.S. government cuts off a key part of Huawei’s supply chain and Huawei is unable to obtain supplies from companies that use U.S. technology to make semiconductors, “I think the government will have a strong argument” that Huawei’s production of 5G equipment will be insecure if it is unable to obtain U.S. intellectual property rights.
The Citizen Lab report does not take a position on “whether or not to ban Huawei,” but it says that “the CCP has influence over how companies operate in China and abroad,” and the report raises the risks in this regard. The Communist government’s massive capital infusion into Huawei makes it difficult for companies from democratic countries to compete with Huawei in the global marketplace.
According to the report, this unbalanced competitive environment discourages non-Chinese telecommunications providers from selling their products in China. As the Chinese Communist Party becomes more assertive internationally, “China could use any country’s dependence on the products of Chinese telecom providers as leverage in diplomatic or trade negotiations.
Parsons noted that the U.S. House Intelligence Committee had already said in 2012 that Chinese officials and Chinese executives at Huawei had undue influence over Huawei’s U.S. division. The report noted that the U.K.-based Huawei Cybersecurity Assessment Centre found that the Chinese equipment was “very poor quality” and “designed like it was the year 2000.
The Canadian government has not made a decision on whether to ban Huawei in recent years, and it is still conducting a review of 5G cybersecurity. Opposition parties passed a motion in Parliament last month urging the government to make a decision soon, but the government is not bound by the motion.
The Globe and Mail reports that while the government has not said when it will announce its decision, unnamed government officials have said that even if Huawei is banned, the reviewers will recommend testing all 5G vendors’ equipment for security vulnerabilities, the Globe and Mail reports.
Government network security experts in countries such as Australia and the United States said that Huawei’s 5G equipment was banned because of the nature of 5G networks. Where the core of 3G and 4G networks are heavily protected and separated from the edges of the network, 5G networks will blur between the core and the edges in order to increase speed.
Major Canadian telecom companies have previously stated that they expect the federal government to ban Huawei. Several telcos have announced their choice of using 5G equipment from Finland’s Nokia, Sweden’s Ericsson or South Korea’s Samsung.
Canada is the only country in the Five Eyes alliance that has yet to ban or restrict the use of Huawei equipment. In October, Sweden announced a ban on Huawei 5G, and other countries or regions that have banned Huawei 5G include Japan and Taiwan. India is reportedly trying to replace Huawei equipment, Italy recently rejected Huawei’s participation in a 5G tender, and Germany and France have been encouraging their telecom companies to look for suppliers other than Huawei.
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