Huawei responds to spying allegations

Politician Bobi Wine Alias Kyagulanyi Ssentamu who was allegedly spied by Ugandan Government using Huawei Technicians

Huawei Uganda has come up to refute the story  published  by Wall Street Journal saying that the information carried in the story is  inaccurate  and against its business operations in Uganda.

This comes following a story by Wall Street Journal that indicated that Huawei employees provided other services, not disclosed publicly where Technicians from the Chinese powerhouse have, in at least two cases, personally helped African governments spy on their political opponents.

In a statement shared today by Huawei’s media Relations manager in Uganda Mr. Allan Kyobe Kaggwa  reads that the company  obliges to the general privacy protection Policy which stipulates that Huawei strives to comply with applicable laws and regulations related to Privacy and Personal Data protection in countries where Huawei operates.

The statement further reveals that 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 prides itself on its compliance with the local laws and regulations in all markets where it operates and will defend its reputation robustly in the face of such baseless allegations.

“The Employee Behavior Guidelines- to ensure the company’s and staff’s operational compliance with local laws through individual awareness and liability.” it reads

Huawei courtesy photo

Statement Reads

Uganda Police CCTV Project is The ONLY security related project we have in Uganda whose scope is installing CCTV cameras, network, project command and data center for specifically public security surveillance and identification of criminal activities. The training therefore we offer police officers is ONLY how to manage the CCTV system.

We have also never developed any intelligence monitoring project for Uganda or signed any contract related to spying and intelligence related activities.
The major purpose of CCTV project deployment is to identify criminal activities from wrong doers by CCTV camera surveillance and has already practically helped the Uganda Police to reduce the criminal rate in the city streets.

We do not have any staff embedded to work at Police Headquarters as alleged by the Wall Street Journal.

We categorically state that during the year 2017 Huawei did not accompany any Uganda officers for any technical training in Beijing and no Uganda police force officer visited Huawei Shenzhen headquarters.

Huawei has never stopped doing its work or fulfilling its contractual obligations after receiving inquiries from the Wall Street Journal journalists as stated in the article.

We did sign the MoU with the Ministry of ICT in April 2016 which has already expired. Under the MoU we had to provide expertise and knowledge transfer to government, academia and the general public through workshops, seminar, forum, etc,; to support MoICT in joint events such as forums, donations, trainings, etc.; and
To recognize Huawei as an ICT partner in their forums/events. All our donations are aimed at fulfilling our corporate social responsibility.

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