The venue of the 2021 Huawei Developer Conference. Photo: Courtesy of Huawei

Huawei Consumer BG released four privacy & security proposals and three commitments for a safer digital world at Huawei Developer Conference 2021 which was officially commenced in Songshan Lake, Dongguan on Friday. At the conference, Kevin Ho, chief operating officer of Huawei Consumer BG, said, "With the joint efforts of developers and our partners, a brand-new ecosystem has taken shape. A prosperous HarmonyOS ecosystem is right in the corner."

Strategic resolve: the most precious quality

Time has convinced Huawei that strategic resolve is the most precious quality. The all-scenario era featuring hundreds of billions of connections among a myriad of devices is nearly here, and it has thrown ecosystem security into the spotlight. Since 2011, Huawei has made cyber security and privacy protection one of its key development strategies. In 2018, Huawei clearly positioned cybersecurity and privacy protection as top priorities, and also guaranteed that it would never compromise cybersecurity for commercial interests.

Huawei has made "four proposals" regarding the security and privacy protection of its Consumer Business, which involves adopting a top-down structure and process, formulating an airtight privacy and security framework, co-developing a security verification framework with industry stakeholders, and opening security and privacy capabilities to ecosystem partners.

Huawei has developed strict privacy and security principles, including data security assurance, data minimization, data processing on devices, transparency and controllability, and identity protection. "Our standards are very strict. Services that do not comply with the security and privacy protection principles and processes are not allowed to be released." Kevin Ho mentioned that cybersecurity and privacy protection are at the core of Huawei's all-scenario ecosystem strategy, which is why Huawei pays special attention to cybersecurity and privacy protection.

Non-stop commitment to privacy & security

Huawei spares no efforts in privacy & security, and sticks to its commitments all along the way. Kevin Ho, speaking on behalf of Huawei's Consumer Business, firmly proposed the "three commitments" for security & privacy at the conference, which assures users that privacy is a fundamental right of theirs and Huawei considers user privacy &security as top priorities, that user data will be fully encrypted and no one can access the data without user consent, and that users will always have complete control over their data and everything is subject to user authorization from power-on.

Huawei applies innovative technology to protect user privacy and security, such as fully and systematically encrypting user data on devices using the hardware-level encryption-per-file technique and on the cloud, safeguarding against any unauthorized access. Efforts have been made to maintain Huawei's commitments to consumers, without compromising them for lower costs. In terms of social networking privacy, a set of privacy protection measures have been made available, such as AI Private View, which automatically prevents new messages from being displayed on the screen if someone else tries to look at the screen. In MeeTime, sealed messages cannot be captured with screenshots or forwarded, and vanishing messages can be viewed only once. With regard to phone repair, Huawei launched the industry's first "repair mode" in 2018, so users do not need to worry about data leaks while their phone is under repair.

Fundamental ecosystem security

Huawei has opened four security capability packages involving over 10 subsets for app ecosystem partners, and two security capability packages comprising over 30 subsets for device ecosystem partners, helping developers achieve greater success in the all-scenario ecosystem without compromising on security.

Today's world is organized not by domain, but by the challenges we face. The intelligent connectivity era features hundreds of billions of connections among things. Huawei not only applied security & privacy capabilities built over the years to products, but also opened them to app and device ecosystem partners, hoping to build an ultra-secure, all-scenario ecosystem through cooperation.

We can all agree that security can ultimately be fulfilled when an ecosystem's security is ensured. At the conference, Huawei also officially released the HarmonyOS Connect Ecosystem Device Security and Privacy Protection Guide for ecosystem partners to follow when developing products.

HUAWEI Bug Bounty Program has been set up in 2018 to reward white hats who help safeguard consumer security. Rewards for spotting a single security issue soar up to 1.5 million yuan ($235,050), and rewards for spotting systemic vulnerabilities 8 million yuan.

Hope on track to map the future

Huawei expects to benefit all with technology and embrace prosperity with trust, and values security as a key corporate social responsibilities. Efforts have also been made to improve childcare, information accessibility, education and health, and environmental protection.

Parents can have full control over how children use devices through parental authorization, which is required for creating child accounts, with which only age-appropriate content can be displayed for such an account. Payments made through a child account is also subject to parent authorization.

As for information accessibility, Huawei believes that technology should be accessible to all. Each month, Huawei ScreenReader assists millions of users in using their devices and almost 1 million users benefit from AI Subtitles that turns audio into scripts. In May 2021, Huawei was rated five stars by CTTL for "design for the elderly" capabilities. 

Technological exploration has always been an arduous and painful process. From the breakthrough of a single technology to the construction of an ecosystem, the difficulty increases exponentially. "We must have strategic resolve and maintain our determination and perseverance to face many days and nights of hard work and solitude," said Kevin Ho. He also mentioned that Huawei has always adhered to the concept that customer success takes precedence over Huawei's success. 

This concept is also applicable to the construction of an ecosystem. That is, the success of developers and partners takes precedence over that of Huawei. Adhering to the open-source spirit of "one for all, all for one," Huawei is committed to building the HarmonyOS ecosystem for the benefit of all humanity.

Hope is not something we should wait for, but a way to see where we are. The future has never been so clear, as we can already see where it is going.