The Industrial Development Bureau yesterday said that employees of government departments and state-funded agencies are banned from using equipment made by China-based companies, especially Huawei Technologies Co (華為), to access sensitive information on internal Web sites, given growing concern over data breaches.
The government several years ago began prohibiting local telecoms and government departments from using Huawei’s core telecommunications equipment to prevent the leakage of secret data.
More recently, the government has tightened its grip on data security by banning employees at state-backed agencies from using Huawei smartphones or other equipment to access data online.
Photo: AP
“To protect sensitive information from snooping, the government has long restricted the use of China-made equipment and devices, including mobile phones and computers, to obtain information from government Web sites,” bureau spokesman Yu Cheng-wei (游振偉) said by telephone.
The restrictions are not limited to Huawei, he said, implying that devices made by Chinese manufacturers such as Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀移動), Vivo Electronics Corp (維沃移動通信) and Xiaomi Corp (小米) are also blocked from connecting to internal government Web sites.
The bureau’s comments came after the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) yesterday took the lead among government-backed agencies in banning Huawei devices.
The institute said that its employees would be blocked from accessing any data on its internal Web sites when using Huawei mobile phones, effective immediately.
“The ITRI is a national-level research institute. Its research involves secret information. To protect such data from leaking, employees are not allowed to use Huawei smartphones to connect to our internal Web sites,” the ITRI said in a statement.
“They will be blocked from using the institute’s private wireless network as well,” it added.
Following the ITRI’s lead, the government-backed Institute for Information Industry (III, 資策會) said that it would also prohibit employees from using Huawei devices to access data on any of its internal Web sites.
The III said that it would not procure Huawei equipment, in line with government regulations, adding that a thorough examination last week determined that it did not have any Huawei core telecommunications equipment installed.
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