Dutch telecoms company KPN NV said on Monday that to its knowledge, Chinese equipment supplier Huawei has not improperly monitored any of its mobile users, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The report comes after a newspaper article said a 2010 consulting report had mentioned such a wiretapping risk.

Huawei, a major provider of equipment for KPN's 3G and 4G mobile networks, denied any suggestion that it could have improperly monitored KPN users, the source said.

An article published by Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant over the weekend cited a report by French consulting firm Capgemini to KPN. The article said the consulting report claimed that Huawei may have monitored the calls of all its users, including the then prime minister, in 2010 without KPN's knowledge.

The 2010 consulting report suggests that Huawei had unauthorized access to KPN's networks and could intercept calls from China without control, bringing down the network and wiretapping the phones of dignitaries and dissidents, including the then Dutch prime minister.

KPN confirmed the existence of such a consulting report, but said the purpose of the report was to analyze the risks involved. According to KPN, Capgemini's report did not confirm that Huawei had monitored any of its users or obtained data.

KPN said, "For many years, we have never observed Huawei accessing user data."

the consulting firm Capgemini declined to comment, citing the need to maintain customer confidentiality.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/kpn-huawei-tech-report-idCNL1N2MC0CZ