Huawei is already in deep water as a result of US ban and US-China trade war. To avoid further complication with other countries like India, Huawei offered a “no back door” agreement with the Indian government. The company hopes the measure would help assure the Indian government about any cybersecurity breach that could arise at the vendor’s end.
A “back door” is a point of access in a network/equipment that guarantees entry into the network/equipment under exceptional circumstances. Without it, the equipment manufacturer can’t access the customer network without consent. According to this agreement, India will also be free to test Huawei’s equipment for any alleged breach either on its own or through a third party entity, without informing the Chinese company.
Huawei India CEO Jay Chen said in an interview that they are ready to sign the agreement right now. He also said, “We are inviting all telecom equipment manufacturers to sign such agreements with the government, and have conveyed that we are ready to do so with the Indian government. We are waiting for a response from it.”
The timing of the announcement is also very significant. Because the move comes just a day before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to India. From the last year, the US is pressurizing all of its allies to ban Huawei and their equipment from 5G networks. Australia and Japan have already banned Huawei’s 5G equipment and Canada and New Zeland is likely to follow the same.
The Department of Telecom is expected to soon begin the 5G spectrum auction after a careful review of the sector regulator’s recommendations. Due to security concent over Huawei, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said the government would take “a firm view” on Huawei’s participation.
To further address any security concerns around Huawei’s smartphones, Chen said the company will proactively shift data of Indian consumers to within the country. “We give this commitment that we will store everything locally in India gradually. Some of the servers are in Singapore and some are in India. We will bring servers to India even if India doesn’t ask for it,” Chen said.
We have to wait for the decision from the Indian govt over Huawei’s proposal. We will inform you as soon as we get to something new on this topic.