The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Royal Bahamas Police Force has not received any official complaints alleging China has spied on Americans via Caribbean phone networks, Police Commissioner Paul Rolle said yesterday.

He replied “no” to reporters yesterday when asked if any formal complaints had been sent to the police in this regard.

The claims were first reported in the UK Guardian newspaper, which said that Chinese communications providers used BTC to conduct surveillance on Americans roaming on their mobile phones in this country.

The assertion that major security vulnerabilities exist in the Bahamian telecommunications system was based on a report by Gary Miller, a US former mobile network security executive, who was said by the UK Guardian to have “spent years analysing mobile threat intelligence reports, and observations of signalling traffic between foreign and US mobile operators”.

The Chinese Embassy in The Bahamas has labelled the reports as false, painting the claims as another attempt by the United States to sow discord between China and Caribbean countries.

The report prompted strong words from the US Embassy in Nassau, with the embassy’s Public Affairs Officer Daniel Durazo saying in a statement to The Tribune: “As Secretary of State (Mike) Pompeo has said, allowing untrusted, high-risk vendors into telecommunications networks makes critical systems vulnerable to disruption, manipulation and espionage, and puts sensitive government, commercial and personal information at risk.

“Countries need to be able to trust that equipment and software companies will not threaten national security, privacy, intellectual property, or human rights.