American company claims that Huawei forced to build backdoor

An American company that set up a surveillance system in a Pakistani city claims that supplier Huawei forced the company to allow Huawei to extract data from the system to place on a server in China. Huawei denies the allegations.

The American Business Efficiency Solutions LLC says in a suit before an American court that Huawei forced data from a system for a city in Pakistan, Lahore, to also be put on a server in China. BES asked Huawei to obtain permission from the authorities in Pakistan to do so and Huawei first said that this was not necessary, while later it was guaranteed that permission had been given, writes The Wall Street Journal.

Huawei had threatened to suspend payments and cancel contracts if the server in China was not set up. Under that pressure, BES would have built the feature. That would have happened in 2017. With a server in China, Huawei could access the data of citizens of Lahore without the knowledge of Pakistani authorities. Huawei denies the allegations, saying the server in China is only for testing the system, with no data from real people.

BES, which currently has no turnover, calls itself a company that specializes in cloud environments and refers to ‘safe cities’ as product on its own site. Huawei has been supplying equipment for networking and surveillance for years, something that Huawei oftensmart cities‘ calls. Huawei hired BES in 2016 to get the award for a ‘safe-city project’ in Lahore. The two parties then entered a legal battle. BES also claims that Huawei stole its technology.