MI6 chief Alex Younger flags need for conversation about Huawei’s role in UK 5G rollout

The head of MI6 has questioned whether Huawei should be involved in the UK’s 5G network amid fears over spying.

Alex Younger, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service — with St Andrews University Professor Sally Mapstone after a speech in Scotland. Picture: Getty

The head of MI6 has questioned whether a Chinese telecoms giant should be involved in Britain’s next-generation mobile network amid fears over spying.

Alex Younger, 55, said that “some decisions” about Huawei must be made after the US, New Zealand and Australia, all close intelligence partners, banned the company from providing technology for their 5G superfast networks.

New Zealand said last week that the company posed “significant national security risks”. The US has repeatedly warned that Huawei’s ties to China’s government made its products vulnerable to espionage or interference. Huawei strongly denies the claim.

Giving only his second speech since taking the job of “C” at MI6, Mr Younger highlighted Beijing’s aim to become the dominant player in all the world’s emerging technologies by 2049. “This is something we need to think about,” he said. “In China they have a different legal and ethical framework. They are able to use and manipulate data sets on a scale that we can only dream of.”

Asked about the New Zealand ban, he said: “I think this is really interesting. We’ve got some decisions to take here … This is about whether 5G will be by and large based on Chinese technology, essentially Huawei.

“We need to decide the extent to which we are going to be comfortable with Chinese ownership of these technologies and these platforms in an environment where some of our allies have taken quite a definite position. We need to have a conversation … This is a nontrivial issue. It’s one that needs to be worked through.”

Unlike other members of the Five-Eyes intelligence alliance, Britain and Canada have not ruled out allowing Huawei to provide technology for their 5G infrastructure. The new network will provide superfast mobile streaming with the first 5G-ready smartphones expected to be released early next year. Huawei opened its first office in Britain in 2001 and has developed partnerships with institutions, including Cambridge, Oxford and Cardiff universities. On its British board of directors are the former chief of BP Lord Browne of Madingley and Sir Andrew Cahn, a former civil servant.

Its technology, which includes phone antennae, is used to support mobile and broadband services. Most of the country’s networks — Vodafone, EE and Three — are working with Huawei to prepare their 5G offerings.

The company’s equipment is tested by the National Cyber Security Centre. However, Mr Younger said that kit used for 5G networks would be harder to monitor for security purposes.

Speaking to students at the University of St Andrews, where he studied three decades ago, the security chief also said that he was perplexed over why the United Arab Emirates jailed the British student Matthew Hedges. He “genuinely can’t understand how our Emirati partners came to the conclusions they came to”. Mr Hedges was accused of spying for MI6 and jailed in the UAE last month, but was pardoned and returned home last week.

Of the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, he said: “We’ve made it very clear to the Saudis that we expect to see a transparent and effective investigation and that much will hang on the results of that investigation.”

The Times