Huawei suspected of tracking visitors to MWC23 booth
Chinese tech giant under suspicion of allegedly tracking visitors to its booth at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023 in Barcelona last month.
Visitors to the booth were issued with badges and lanyards which were meant to be returned on departure. Some visitors forgot to return them but later noticed a small plastic case attached to each lanyard. When dismantled, these cases were found to contain a very small chip - which does raise a few questions.
In an interview with Light Reading, Rolf Werner, Nokia Senior VP of Europe, showed off one of the circuits and said they could be used as trackers, possibly using Beacon technology. Beacon relies on low-power signals for tracking over distances of up to 70 meters.
The back of the Huawei badges did carry a warning:
"We use RFID and Bluetooth technology to collect the swipe time of this Huawei Card at the entrance of Huawei exhibition area, real-time location information and the residence time information of this Huawei Card holders within Huawei exhibition area, such information will be collected and processed only for the purpose of analysing the overall interests of our invitees in our products to enhance our service quality. We will protect such information according to our Privacy Policy."
When Light Reading sought comment from Huawei they were told that, "the Huawei pass is used only in the booth and returned when visitors get out." The spokesperson went on to say: "There is no need to track location."
These allegations are the latest in a long line against Huawei, and come at a time of drastic deterioration in relations between China and the West.
More bans on the way for Huawei
The Chinese tech giant has consistently denied spying allegations, but that hasn't stopped a series of countries banning the use of Huawei technology in their 5G networks following the US imposing sanctions back in 2019.
UK operators have until the end of this year to remove all Huawei kit from UK networks, and according to the German newspaper Zeit Online, the government intends to prohibit German telecom carriers from using certain components from Huawei Technologies and another Chinese firm ZTE in their 5G networks.
In the US, the Biden administration is also reportedly weighing up the option of tightening the Trump era restrictions further, by removing exemptions from the US export ban. The ban would extend to components manufacturer Nvidia, which is specifically mentioned in the draft amendment to the US Commerce Department's licencing rules according to Reuters.
Last year, the US announced tighter resrictions on Chinese access to the kind of cutting edge chip technology necessary for high performance computing. The curbs are designed to make it more difficult for China to manufacture sophisticated surveillance and weaponry.