China is looking to construct its own secure smartphones capable of evading U.S. surveillance programs.
Chinese officials have long expressed a concern over the use of U.S.-made hardware and softrware in the smartphones being used in their nation so they now looking to establish their own tech industry independent of Western technology, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The majority of phones in China are powered by either the Android or Apple operating system. This raises the issue of possible cyberespionage for the Chinese government because of the 2013 Snowden revelations that that NSA placed “back doors” in some American technology that was sold overseas, according to the WSJ story.
The Chinese effort will utilize the efforts of both state-owned and privately held technology firms, like Alibaba, to create the homegrown device.
