Chinese network vendor Huawei has expressed fears that Joint Parliamentary Committee recommendations in Australian telecommunications security inquiry would result in discriminations against the company and other vendors, reports Znet.com.
Huawei was banned from being involved in the NBN reportedly following advice from intelligence services that it was involved in cyber spying on behalf of Beijing.
The Attorney-General’s Department has proposed changes to the national security laws and told a high-powered parliamentary committee to consider them.
The report said that as Huawei was banned from tendering for the NBN for reasons still currently kept secret, it comes as no surprise that Huawei’s submission to the inquiry raised concerns about proposals that could exclude Huawei and other vendors.
“Given the commentary surrounding the proposed reforms, we do have concerns that the security standards proposed in the Discussion Paper will be imposed in a way that discriminates against particular vendors, or vendors from a particular country of origin, with little or no benefit for security outcomes,” Huawei said.
The company said that the security reforms should not amount to “additional red tape” and should focus on the actual security risks, rather than “irrelevant criteria, such as the country of origin of a vendor”.
It said the company stated that network vendors need to demonstrate the security of their equipment in order to win business, and as such, strong competition in the industry improves the security available in the network equipment. Huawei highlighted that it has equipment in fibre networks in the UK, Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand, and while it does not have a meaningful presence in tier 1 carrier networks in the US, there has been no evidence that the US networks are more secure than those in the UK or New Zealand.