Concern that Chinese tech companies could have too much influence over critical infrastructure in Germany is growing by the day. The German government now wants to ban the Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE from building the 5G network in Germany.
The federal government wants to ban mobile phone companies from using certain controls from the Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE when building the 5G network. A person familiar with the process told Reuters, confirming preliminary reports from “Zeit” and “Handelsblatt”. The ban should also affect parts that have already been installed. Officially, the federal government initially did not comment on the information.
The bans were triggered by concerns that China could gain direct or indirect access to German mobile networks. One sees the danger that the installation of such components at points for the control of the networks would result in one-sided dependencies, quoted the "Zeit" from government circles.
The mobile phone companies concerned had reacted cautiously, reported the "time". Vodafone have stated that they do not comment on the process. Telefonica announced that they were complying with all legal requirements and had sent all information about critical components to the responsible authorities. After the report, Deutsche Telekom replied that it was not "participating in political speculation". Incidentally, critical components are used "after their own testing and testing and approval or non-prohibition by the BSI (Federal Office for Information Security)."
The "Handelsblatt" reported that politicians from the SPD and Union had welcomed the restrictions on the construction of the 5G network in Germany. "In view of the changed security situation, we cannot tolerate any hardware from manufacturers that are not completely trustworthy in the core networks," said the digital policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Jens Zimmermann.
The CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen told the "Handelsblatt": "If it's true that the Ministry of the Interior is finally starting to ban 5G components from untrustworthy providers, then that would be good news."
