The nation’s security agencies on Tuesday convened to discuss a proposal to expand the ban on government agencies using Chinese-made information and communications devices and social media platforms, with a set of operating guidelines expected by the end of this month at the earliest, sources in the Executive Yuan said.
The meeting was convened by the National Security Council, the sources said.
Brands that could be banned include ZTE Corp, which last year plead guilty to US sanctions breaches; Hikvision Digital Technology Co, whose surveillance products the Chinese government allegedly used to spy on Uighurs in Xinjiang; and Lenovo Group, which has been implicated in several Chinese-led espionage cases, they said.
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, it 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.
Information security is a crucial to national security, which is why the council was brought in, Vice Premier Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said.
Officials familiar with the matter said that the security agencies have been told to focus on practical concerns rather than give the impression that the Democratic Progressive Party administration “is against all things China,” but that the ban should not be made so lax that Chinese-funded businesses could exploit loopholes to the detriment of national security.
So far, the government’s plan to expand the procurement ban to state-run enterprises has not changed, they added.
Tuesday’s meeting was not the first, and the council and Premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) close aides are paying their utmost attention to the specifics of the ban to avoid any misunderstandings, they said.
The Executive Yuan initially said that the guidelines would be unveiled in January, with a list of banned companies scheduled to be released later this month.
It then said that it had scrapped the timetable for the ban, but that the guidelines could be unveiled before the end of this month at the earliest.
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