Fears over Huawei's use in Spain's intelligence and police systems

In Spain there is growing concern over the use of Chinese technology from Huawei in processes closely tied to national security. According to local media in the European country, the current government signed contracts with the Shenzhen-based company to provide servers to its law enforcement and intelligence agencies—going against the European Union's recommendations.

According to official Spanish government documents published by The Objective, the Interior Ministry armed its agencies with Chinese Huawei OceanStor 6800 V5 servers to store wiretaps obtained prior to judicial authorization.

These contracts with Huawei were given after the arrival of the Government of the current Executive headed by the socialist Pedro Sanchez. Prior to the Socialist Party Government, they were revoked by the centrist Popular Party, which replaced Huawei, contracted for the first time by the governments of the Socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

Rodríguez Zapatero himself is under scrutiny by the center-right opposition in Spain, accused of lobbying in favor of the Chinese company.

Since Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House and the implementation of his tariff policies, the Spanish government has strengthened its ties with Beijing, viewing it as an alternative market to the United States. In the past month, ahead of a planned state visit to China, Beijing praised Spain as being “at the forefront” of its relations with Europe.

Potential danger to national security

Several Western governments have warned about the dangers that lie in the use of Huawei's technology for national security tasks.

Essentially, the company is linked to the Chinese government. In 2019, the Trump administration signed an executive order allowing the government to restrict any transaction involving information and communication technologies with "foreign adversaries."

Later, in 2022, during the Biden Administration, the Government banned the acquisition of new telecommunications equipment from Chinese companies Huawei Technologies and ZTE, citing them as posing "an unacceptable risk" to the national security of the United States.

The United States is not the only country that has denounced serious risks to its security as a result of the use of technology from the Chinese giant.

In France, the government of Emmanuel Macron imposed a ban on Huawei products for the deployment of the 5G network on its national territory. If at first the French government only recommended not to use Chinese technology, it did decree that by 2028 it would not be possible to use Huawei components in this network.

The former director of British intelligence, sir Richard Dearlove, also advised vetoing Huawei because of its ties to the Chinese government. "No part of the Chinese communist state can operate free from the control exercised by its leadership," he assured The Guardian in 2019. "We must therefore conclude that Huawei's involvement presents a potential risk to the security of the United Kingdom."

Only a year earlier, European media reported that the Netherlands intelligence agency was investigating whether the Chinese government took advantage of the use of Huawei equipment by Dutch companies to carry out espionage work.

Technology subjected to the Chinese government

Huawei's OceanStor 6800 V5 used by Spanish agencies is a high-end storage system, designed for data centers that handle large volumes of information.

However, its weak point is that since it is Chinese-made, it is subject to Chinese law. Beijing law obliges China-based companies to collaborate with intelligence services if required to do so. This creates a potential vector for state pressure on companies like Huawei.

This danger is as much as whether or not the servers are located in China.

Added to this is that, unlike open or auditable technologies, Huawei's systems do not always allow third-party auditing, which complicates detecting vulnerabilities or backdoors.