Huawei Responds to Allegations of Spying on Pakistan

A few days back, a California-based company, Business Efficieny Solutions LLC sued Huawei for stealing the trade secrets of Pakistan’s Safe City Project. For those who do not know the background, Huawei had subcontracted with BES in 2016 for developing software Smart City Project, a Pakistani government program that accommodates new technology for police and law enforcement in Lahore. Huawei partnered with  PITB to launch a safe city project in Lahore and for that, it used BES software for the project. However, it is accused of spying on Pakistan.

The software created was used to collect data from government agencies. It also controls access to buildings and manages drones as well. From this, one can realize the importance and security of the Smart City project.

Huawei Responds to Allegations of Spying on Pakistan

After the allegation, Huawei remained quiet for some days but later on come up response. According to the Chinese company, it respects the security of third-party intellectual property rights. It also mentioned that the Californian company is not able to give evidence that it created backdoors to spy on Pakistan.

BES also revealed that Huawei has not paid for some of its software along with misusing its trade secrets. While the overall story doesn’t seem good, but if I think neutral it seems that it is another game from the US company. It might have done it to threaten Huawei to pay the remaining amount of its software to get rid of law proceedings. Moreover, this is not the first time that Huawei has got backlash from the US, previously ex-President Donald Trump had banned Huawei from using US software and hardware products due to spying issues. So it might be possible that this saga is in continuation of that.

However, it is also possible that like previous dramas, this one is created just out of jealousy from China since it is leading the world when it comes to technology.

The information doesn’t seem to trouble Pakistan, as Muhammad Kamran Khan, chief operating officer of the Punjab Safe Cities Authority said the authority has begun looking into BES’s allegations.

“Our team is examining the accusations and sought an explanation from Huawei,” Mr. Khan said in an interview. “We have also put a data security check on Huawei after this issue. so far, there has been no evidence of any data-stealing by Huawei,”

The time will tell if Pakistan’s data was compromised or not. Let’s wait and watch.

Also Read: Huawei Accused on Spying on Pakistan’s Safe City Project