Huawei Technologies, a Chinese telecommunications company, is being excluded by countries from the long-awaited global launch of the 5G network.
The development of 5G networks will provide people with faster online connections. It will give vast data capacity to meet the ravenous demand as more and more things connect to the internet and innovations like virtual reality, immersive gaming, and autonomous vehicles rise.
Huawei Exempted from 5G Rollout
The Conservatives have long pressured the Liberals to deny the Chinese company a role in launching the 5G infrastructure in Canada, stating that it would result in China spying on Canadians, according to GlobalNews.ca.
Earlier this year, Canada's Prime Minister Trudeau was also pressured to ban Huawei.
Some said that Huawei's participation could give China access to a list of digital information gleaned from how, when and where Canadian customers use their devices.
Some theories point out that Beijing's security agencies may pressure Huawei to give them their customers' personal information.
These concerns stemmed from the fact that the National Intelligence Law of China implies that Chinese companies, like Huawei, and Chinese citizens must support and assist the state intelligence with their work no matter what.
Huawei insists that they are exempted from that law because they are an independent company and they do not engage in such espionage for any country, even Beijing, according to The Star.
Alykhan Velshi, Huawei Canada's vice-president of corporate affairs, said that they sell in 180 countries around the world.
They added that they have to comply with the laws of each of those countries. And if they were to violate the trust, they would find themselves only selling in one country.
Huawei's Alleged Security Risk
Regardless of whether Huawei poses a genuine security risk, the concerns have given rise to a general notion that countries can't afford to gamble on a telecommunications firm that Beijing supports, according to Wesley Wark, an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa.
Wark added that the Chinese company is too alight to the Chinese regime to allow Western countries to do anything else and that there are no alternatives presented, according to Verge Express.
Velshi added Huawei hoped that any decision that the federal government made on the 5G policy would be based on technology and that politics would not play a role.
Velshi also stated that most of the company's employees in Canada are involved in research and development and marketing products, aside from network equipment for telecom operators.
He said that they have a diversified business in Canada that is why they sell smartphones in the country and sell earbuds and laptops.
While there has been a focus on Huawei, the Canadian government's 5G review is a much broader take at how 5G can spur the country's economy.
Bill Blair, the public safety minister of Canada, said that in order to use the power of 5G for economic growth successfully, the safety and security of the technology must be ensured.
Blair added that incidents resulting from the exploitation of vulnerabilities by malicious actors will be more difficult to safeguard against and could have a broader impact than in previous generations of wireless technology.
As countries work on the launch of 5G, Huawei is allegedly researching the possibility of 6G in the future.
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Written by Sophie Webster
