Reports that Chinese vendor Huawei has been eavesdropping on conversations over a Dutch telephone network have vindicated Australian and British MPs who had pressured the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to join much of the Western world to ban Huawei from 5G networks.
Huawei staff were able to listen in on all mobile numbers on the KPN network, according to a 2010 internal company record obtained by Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant.
The report says Huawei had access, via a security flaw, to calls on Dutch network KPN.
Australia recently moved to ban Huawei from its broadband and 5G networks in a bid to nip such security concerns.
The deputy chair of Australia’s joint parliamentary committee on intelligence and security Anthony Byrne told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, that the Dutch report validated concerns that he and the security agencies have held about Huawei.
“This justifies the actions taken by the Australian intelligence agencies and should give heart to our friends in Britain that the difficult decision that they made about the 5G network was the right one and will protect their country,” he said.
