WaPo Huawei Investigation, New Mexico Google Settlements, DHS Bug Bounty Program
New documents allegedly reveal Huawei is more involved with Chinese surveillance than previously known.
T.J. York
December 15, 2021 – PowerPoint presentations from Chinese corporation Huawei Technologies indicate that the company has been more involved with Chinese government surveillance efforts than previously revealed, a Washington Post investigation on Tuesday shows.
The investigation encompassed over 100 presentations originally posted to a public-facing Huawei website before they were removed late this year.
Through the presentations, Huawei allegedly pitched its technologies as assets for identifying individuals by voice, monitoring political targets, managing ideological reeducation and labor schedules for prisoners and helping retailers track shoppers with facial recognition.
The company had previously denied involvement with state surveillance, saying it just sells general purpose networking gear.
Concerns around Huawei’s transparency are longstanding, with Congress passing bans on U.S. government use of its technology earlier this year.
New Mexico AG announces child privacy settlements
New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas announced Monday two landmark federal settlements with Google that will fund online privacy and safety efforts for children across his state through the creation of the Google New Mexico Kids Initiative.
The settlements come from cases concerning allegations from Balderas that Google had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
Google and Balderas will work together in the coming weeks to identify New Mexican recipients of these settlement funds.
The agreements also mandate that Google continue to require Play Store apps to implement age-screening techniques to avoid data collection from children younger than 13 – a practice they began following a 2019 suit from Balderas.
Additionally, Google must require Play Store app developers to complete a “Target Audience and Content” form to indicate apps’ targeted age groups.
Balderas’ outside attorneys will also receive $1.65 million from Google through the settlement.
DHS announces new bug bounty cybersecurity effort
The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday announced a new bug bounty program meant to identify department cybersecurity vulnerabilities following a year of prominent cyberattacks including the SolarWinds hack of federal agencies such as DHS.
The program titled Hack DHS will allow vetted cybersecurity experts to hunt through some external DHS systems for vulnerabilities and pay experts should anything be found.
Hack DHS will occur in three phases across the next fiscal year involving virtual assessments of networks, a live hacking event and evaluation of findings.
The program was announced by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at Tuesday’s Bloomberg Technology Summit.
“As the federal government’s quarterback, DHS must lead by example and constantly seek to strengthen our own systems,” said Mayorkas in a statement Tuesday.
A bug bounty program was first established by DHS in 2019, and the first government bug bounty program was created in 2016.
