The Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT has said that importing telecom equipment from China is a big threat to the national security and has asked the Department of Telecom to promote indigenous manufacturing.

“The committee feels that the importing of SIM cards and telecom equipment from different countries especially China is a big threat to the national security and, therefore, recommend that all initiative to have indigenous SIM cards as well as other telecom equipments should be explored,” the Parliamentary panel said in its twenty first report.

Earlier, intelligence agencies had expressed similar concerns, which had resulted in a temporary ban on importing Chinese equipment. The security agencies had said that equipment being imported from unfriendly countries could have embedded spyware or malware which would enable agencies in other countries to snoop into India's telecom networks. Spyware also allows unfriendly countries to take control of the telecom network from a remote location.

The two Chinese equipment suppliers ZTE and Huawei have denied these allegations. Huawei recently appointed a former UK government Chief Information Officer to oversee the company's cyber security assurance system in a move improve the company's image.

According to the DoT, equipment worth Rs 1. 48 lakh crore have been imported over the last three years. DoT has informed the Parliamentary panel that it has taken a number of steps for addressing the security concerns. It has recently issued guidelines for importing equipment under which the onus for keeping the networks secure has been put on the operators. Operators have also been asked to set up test labs to scrutinise imported equipment before installing in the network.

Local manufacturing

DoT is also finalising a policy for promoting local manufacturing. This includes asking operators to buy at least 30 per cent of their requirement from manufacturers in India. Equipment vendors have also set up manufacturing facilities in the country to enable intelligence agencies to keep a tab.

While acknowledging the steps taken by the DoT to promote local manufacturing of equipment, the Parliamentary panel said that the Department has not yet taken any concrete initiatives to address security concerns arising out of importing SIM cards. The security agencies fear that imported SIM cards could have malware programs that can be used for tracking and monitoring subscribers' telephone activity.

The Parliament Committee said that it was surprised to note that the DoT did not notice any security threats due to import of SIM cards before the matter was pointed out by the Ministry of Home Affairs. “What surprised the committee more is the fact that neither the department thought of any potential security threat that could have emanated from the SIM cards, nor asses any security threats that could have come due to the use of imported SIM cards in the country,” the report stated.

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