Czech Agencies, Companies to Face Audit Over Use of Huawei Products - Babis

PRAGUE (Sputnik) - Some 160 leading Czech agencies and companies will be subject to a special audit aimed at assessing risks related to the use of products of China’s Huawei telecom giant and ZTE Corporation, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said.

"On Monday, the government instructed the relevant competent agencies to analyze risks related to the use of computer software of Chinese company Huawei, as well as those of ZTE. The audit will concern about 160 leading agencies, firms and enterprises, both public and private, with whom the NCISA will be closely cooperating", Babis said at a press conference.

He specified that the list of those subjected to the audit will include "power plants, power and water supply systems, telecommunications and information systems, medical facilities and the like".

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The statement comes after Czech National Cyber and Information Security Agency (NCISA) Director Dusan Navratil said in mid-December that the agency saw the products of the two Chinese tech giants as a national security threat. The announcement followed a Czech intelligence agency report, which claimed that the activity of the Chinese intelligence services in the country, first of all in the area of industrial espionage, had increased.

The United States and several other countries have also raised security questions with regard to the Chinese telecommunications giants. The company, however, refuted the allegations. In particular, in response to NCISA claims, the representative of Huawei in the Czech Republic, Magda Teresa Partyka, said that there were no laws in China that would force Huawei or any other company to build so-called back doors into their products.