EMPLOYEES of global high-tech giant Huawei in Zambia and Uganda have helped their governments spy on political opponents.
This is according to the Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper reported that this had led to the arrests of many people in both countries.
The employees reportedly helped Uganda’s cyber-surveillance unit to break into the WhatsApp group belonging to Bobi Wine, a political opponent of Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni.
This resulted in Wine’s arrest and those of dozens of his supporters.
In Zambia, technicians of the Chinese-headquartered company allegedly helped the government access the phones and Facebook pages of bloggers opposing Zambian president Edgar Lungu.
This allowed the unit to locate the bloggers’ locations, which led to arrests.
However, there was no evidence the employees were acting on behalf of Huawei or the Chinese government.
Neither Huawei nor China knew about the employees’ actions, according to the newspaper.
Huawei South Africa rejected the allegations.
“Huawei’s code of business conduct prohibits any employees from undertaking any activities that would compromise our customers or end users’ data or privacy or that would breach any laws,” Huawei said. – BUSINESS INSIDER
