The most innovative use of 5G technology comes from Chinese companies, raising the fear that China’s government could have ground-level access to the UK’s critical data infrastructure.
The United States banned Chinese multinationals Huawei and ZTE – both specialists in 5G – from selling equipment to the federal government earlier this year.
The government has put £200m into the development of 5G with the first 5G pilot centre launched before a possible national roll-out.
BT, which uses Huawei to supply parts for its network, told Sky News that it would “apply the same stringent security measures and controls to 5G when we start to roll it out, in line with continued guidance from government”.
The former director of GCHQ Robert Hannigan told Sky News: “”We do need to find a way of scrutinising what is being installed in our network, and how it is being overseen and how it is being controlled and how it’s being upgraded in the future. And we have to find a more effective way of doing that at scale.”
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