
Credit: Matti Blum/Wikipedia/Creative Commons 4.0
A report out of Holland alleges that at one point Huawei, the darling of the Chinese Communist Party that supplied equipment for KPN’s mobile cellphone network, was able to monitor any calls made by subscribers that included the Prime Minister and several cabinet ministers at the time.
It is also alleged the report was so concerning that KPN initially tried to suppress it.
The Daily Mail reports:
Chinese communications giant Huawei was able to eavesdrop on any conversation taking place on one of the biggest mobile networks in the Netherlands.
Huawei staff were able to monitor all of KPN’s mobile users and eavesdrop on their private conversations – and even knew which numbers were tapped by police or intelligence agencies, according to Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant.
The newspaper cited a report prepared by consultancy firm Capgemini for KPN, which it said flagged that Huawei could have been accessing users’ calls in 2010 without KPN knowing.
Even phone calls by the former Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, government ministers and Chinese dissidents were allegedly able to be monitored by Huawei.
According to the article, Huawei also had the power to completely shut down KPN’s network.
Predictably, Huawei has denied this.