(Palo Alto, California) Canadian intelligence services and their partners in the “Five Eyes” alliance are sounding the alarm over the “unprecedented” increase in industrial espionage by China. Their leaders appeared together in public for the very first time on Tuesday, to encourage companies to act now to stem the bleeding.
What there is to know
The heads of the intelligence services members of the Five Eyes alliance (Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand) exceptionally participated in a public activity at Stanford University.
The alliance, which usually operates in the shadows, wanted to alert the public to the increase in industrial espionage from China.
The artificial intelligence, quantum computing and synthetic biology sectors are particularly targeted at the moment, according to senior officials.
“The rules of the game have changed,” warned the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), David Vigneault, as he spoke Tuesday alongside FBI Director Christopher Wray, the head of Britain’s MI5 , Ken McCallum, as well as Australian and New Zealand counterintelligence officials.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE FBI
From left to right: Director General of Australian Intelligence, Mike Burgess, Director of Canadian Security Intelligence Service, David Vigneault, Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, Director General of New Zealand Intelligence, Andrew Hampton, and the Director General of Britain’s MI5, Ken McCallum, in their first joint public appearance on Tuesday.
“The Chinese Communist Party passed legislation that forces anyone of Chinese origin anywhere in the world to assist their intelligence services. This means that they have a way of using coercion against people here in our countries to tell them to give up their secrets,” continued Mr. Vigneault. The director stressed that it was crucial in this regard not to stigmatize people from China, who are often the first victims of the Chinese government.
“There is no greater threat to innovation than the Chinese government, and the fact that we have decided to come together to highlight it shows how seriously the five of us and our services take this threat,” declared FBI Director Christopher Wray, according to whom Chinese hacking operations now exceed those of all other countries on the globe.
“The Chinese government is engaged in the most sustained and sophisticated theft of intellectual property and acquisition of expertise, which has no precedent in human history,” added Mike Burgess, director general of Chinese services. Australian intelligence services.
A first
Tuesday’s outing was the first joint public appearance by the intelligence chiefs of the five allied countries. The Five Eyes alliance, established in 1946 to cooperate in gathering intelligence on rival powers, is used to operating out of the spotlight. But the threats that weigh today on private companies in member countries are forcing counter-espionage experts to come out of the shadows. They gathered on Tuesday to meet the private sector as part of an event at Stanford University, in the heart of Silicon Valley, where The Press was present.
“We know that in an instant, the loss of intellectual property and a commercial advantage can vaporize years of hard work,” underlined Mr. Vigneault during a panel moderated by former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
A silo approach, which divides the private, public and academic sectors, is doomed to failure.
David Vigneault, Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
And to establish better links with the private sector and researchers, intelligence services must demonstrate humility, he argued. “We carry a lot of stigma,” he stressed, citing as an example certain actions which were criticized in the fight against terrorism after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Several targeted sectors
The Five Eyes intelligence services have particularly urged business leaders in the artificial intelligence, quantum computing and synthetic biology sectors to be wary of industrial espionage. The advice provided notably warned against computer hacking, but also against infiltration by human agents and the arrival of investors who could have links with the Chinese government.
In Canada, arrests such as those of a former Hydro-Québec scientist and a former Canadian Space Agency official, suspected of helping Chinese entities, have shone a spotlight on threats to critical infrastructure and government agencies. But the participants in Tuesday’s meeting stressed the importance of also raising awareness among start-ups and SMEs, which are prime targets at the moment, according to their observations.
If you work in the tech industry, you may not be interested in geopolitics, but geopolitics is interested in you.
Ken McCallum, director of British MI5
“One hand tied behind the back”
The Canadian private sector was represented at the event by Goldy Hyder, president of the Business Council of Canada. He deplored the extremely strict rules that prevent Canadian intelligence services from sharing sensitive information with people at risk, contrary to what prevails in certain allied countries. CSIS’s mandate forces it to report only to the government. Its ability to interact with other actors in society, such as universities, businesses and the media, is limited by law. Often, information does not have time to circulate to other people involved.
“In Canada, regulations prevent our own security services from warning us before an attack if they hold top secret information. They must tell us about it later. Canada, currently, operates with rules that force it to fight with one hand tied behind its back,” lamented Mr. Hyder in an interview with The Press.
However, in the current context, “we cannot play boy scouts,” he says.
” THE bad guys are everywhere around us now, and their targets are often businesses,” he emphasizes.
However, according to what filtered through discussions in the halls of Stanford University on Tuesday, business people present at the summit expressed their distrust of any government action that could slow growth. Some have argued that what has made Silicon Valley’s start-up spirit successful is the speed and ability to bring new products and services to market quickly.
However, any partnership with the authorities risks harming this search for maximum speed, they expressed.
In a statement sent to the Reuters news agency on Tuesday, the Chinese embassy in Washington deplored the departure of the officials meeting at Stanford. “We firmly reject the baseless allegations and smear against China and hope that relevant stakeholders can view China’s development objectively and fairly,” the text said.