Donald Trump has banned foreign-built Wi-Fi routers over fears they pose a spying risk through data farming and a British security expert has warned the UK should be doing the same.
Former senior British military intelligence officer Phil Ingram has said that data collection through tech like foreign Wi-Fi routers and phone apps poses a ‘very real threat’ to UK national security by ‘China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, who are an axis of evil’.
Nearly every router sold across the US in millions of homes and offices is at least partially built overseas, which Mr Ingram says foreign intelligence agencies could have a ‘backdoor into’.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘This is a very real fear that is reflected in concerns from the UK’s National Protective Security Authority.’
Beyond routers, widely used foreign-made phone apps like TikTok AliExpress and Timu also collect and ‘send data straight back to China’ and should be avoided by the public, Mr Ingram said.
He spoke about what kind of data routers and other tech could be sending back to hostile foreign intelligence agencies.
‘A lot of electronic systems are constantly listening to you,’ Mr Ingram warned, ‘so your smart TV, your smart hub in your house, your smart watch is constantly listening. As it’s listening, that data’s going somewhere.’
In terms of Wi-Fi routers, many have the potential for having back doors, meaning spy agencies could be ‘copying every bit of data that comes out of them onto their own systems, without knowing anything about it’.
He added: ‘With Chinese, equipment in particular, a lot of those back doors are through poor engineering rather than deliberately being put in by the state, but the state can exploit them.’
The UK has already made moves against this in the past, banning the rollout of 5G by the Chinese company Huawei, but critics have said that defences against this sort of espionage have left a lot to be desired.
Sir Keir Starmer greenlit the controversial Chinese super embassy to be set up in London in January, right above key telecommunications lines running through the city near the Tower of London.
At 20,000 square metres, it would be the biggest of its kind in Europe, but Security Minister Dan Jarvis said that he was ‘content any risks are being appropriately managed’.
When asked if we should be making the same security measures as Trump’s Wi-Fi router ban in the US, Mr Ingram said: ‘Yes, of course I think we should be doing the same in the UK.’
He pointed out that the UK is aware of this threat to a degree as the Ministry of Defence expressed concerns over Chinese-manufactured electric cars, ‘because an electric vehicle is effectively a mobile data gathering device that is transmitting that data somewhere’.
Connecting your phone to the vehicle could be a potential monitoring risk and the apps on your device can also pose a risk, particularly TikTok.
‘TikTok will collect every piece of data that’s on someone’s device, whether you think it’s encrypted or not. It is collecting it and sending it back to TikTok servers,’ he said.
He warned that some apps have spyware on them which can switch on phone cameras and microphones so hostile agents can watch and listen in, even if you think your phone is switched off.
The former intelligence officer offered advice that anyone can do to defend against this threat.
Mr Ingram said that people should be more aware of the data they are sending out, adding: ‘You shouldn’t have any apps that come from China, any apps that send data straight back to China, so TikTok, AliExpress, Timu.’
He said that while these apps have a primary function of being a handy video-sharing or marketing platform, ‘their secondary use is to gather every piece of data that’s on your phone, and transmit it back to China, because the Chinese are hoovering up everything.’
He said that this data will then be shared with the likes of Russia, Iran and North Korea to be ‘exploited for their own purposes.’
Donald Trump has gone to several lengths to defend against this sort of espionage in the past and Mr Ingram says this foreign Wi-Fi router ban is in line with this policy.
Huawei is also banned across the pond as well as Chinese CCTV companies like HikVision and Dahua. Chinese drone manufacturer DJI is also banned from providing drones to US government agencies ‘for fear of them being intercepted’, Mr. Ingram said.
Trump has said his Wi-Fi router ban only affects new routers coming into the country. Some foreign routers have been allowed to continue sales after being granted a Condition of Approval by the Department of War of the Department of Homeland Security.
Some critics have said that this push towards US-made routers is part of Trump’s push to ‘Make America Great Again’ and bring home manufacturing.
Security expert Professor Anthony Glees from the University of Buckingham said: ‘Whilst one can see that he might be keen to get US consumers to buy American, put America first, make it great again (but don’t mention the war), I think he’s been told by the NSA [National Security Agency] who are pretty hot on this, that there’s a very real danger Chinese routers could contain chips that would allow “machine interference” techniques to be launched with ease.’
The Daily Mail has contacted TikTok, AliExpress and Timu for comment.
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