Poland may consider Huawei ban amid ‘spy’ arrests – reports

A Polish official has said he couldn’t rule out “legislative changes” to allow the nation to ban the use of a company’s products, following the local arrest of a Huawei staffer.

The country’s internal security agency (Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego, ABW) last week detained a man named by Polish media as Wang Weijing, a sales director at Huawei, on allegations of spying.

Soon after the arrest was made public, Huawei sought to distance itself by sacking the employee on the basis that the “incident has brought Huawei into disrepute”.

The Chinese-headquartered telecoms hardware maker has continually denied accusations its kit is being used by the Chinese government to spy on foreign nations, but the arrest in Poland marks a recent escalation of related concerns in the West.

This has seen the US, Australia and New Zealand implement official bans on using Huawei tech for state-funded 5G projects.

Poland now appears to be considering joining these nations – according to Reuters, the minister of digital affairs Karol Okonski floated the idea of a ban.

“We will analyze whether…our decision can include an end to the use…of Huawei products,” the official said of a potential review of Huawei’s networking gear.

Okonski also suggested further, more broad steps: “We do not have the legal means to force private companies or citizens to stop using any IT company’s products. It cannot be ruled out that we will consider legislative changes that would allow such a move.”

Huawei has insisted that it “complies with all applicable laws and regulations in the countries where it operates, and we require every employee to abide by the laws and regulations in the countries where they are based”. ®

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