5G technology and Albania

Then, like now, technology is the key to our survival. With those words, he opens his book “Pale Blue Dot”, Carl Sagan, the pioneer of science population in the 20th century, inspired by a photo of the Earth, shot nearly six billion miles [6 billion km] away from the Voyager space probe 1, in 1990. Under the effect of the historical context of time, Sagan looked at technology and mother, science, a world unifying factor after the ideological divisions of the Cold War.

The events that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall gave him a right. The Internet and related technologies recognised an unusual increase in the 1990s, especially in the next second half of them, the rise which, attributed to non-cable technologies and particularly smart phones, made the world smaller, more horizontally integrated into industry production, the most homogenous in politics and culture, more interdependent on the trade of products and ideas undoubtedly unique to human history, because the long-standing dream of empires ruling through the sword, religion or money, already realised its own technology.

The world began to transform into a big <x0 village”, as the followers of globalisation would say, and in the process, millions of jobs were created, reoriating economies of developed and developing countries, increasing the efficiency of doing business and why not, making more digital friends than real.

But science, especially its app, technology, has walked alongside political power and military power throughout human history. “... Exploration is rarely motivated only by the curiosity”, writes another noted astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, in his book “Acessory to War”. “Beyond the scientific volume, expeditions have always been funded by individuals hungry for political, cultural, economic or military dominance”. The historical will of this fact is the HMS Beagle, a war horn of the Royal Fleet, in which Charles Darwin cataloged in relation to rocks, shells, and butterflies, and his ideas about the theory of Evolution, while ship's captain, Robert FitzRoy, cataloged places where England would establish its future military post or the next religious mission to dominate the indigenous population.

Jewish historian Yuval Noah Harari, whose writing and style leave little room for debate, has the technology a central theme of his thesis and sees in it a real threat to democracy and liberal ideology (sufficiently reminds us that Facebook is not even 20 years old, while in the presidential elections of 2016, the United States was used by Cambridge Analytica to influence the vote of over 50 million Americans) and that technology, with a tendency to increase the rate of processing, broadcasting and centralizing information, can reach real times and that it is better known by individuals than it knows, by its romantic and artistic elections, to influence itself.

But where is Albania found in this whirlwind of technological development and distribution for its use? As a small country with relatively new populations, in a favourable geographical position to serve as a dynamic and sophisticated trade joints and services providers, since tourism, financial services, processing, transport, etc., use of technology in production, infrastructure and communication would create a rapid competitive advantage, whose potential would only increase exponentially with time. Through technological development, South Korea managed to pass through one country within 30 years. Whose GDP equals Rwanda's, in a G-20 country and will be one of the top 10 world economy leaders in 2050. With only 1.3 million inhabitants, former Soviet republics, Estonia, inventor of “Skype”, the most digitally advanced society in the world today, is another example to follow.

But, Albanian reality is still far from effective use of technology. From reviews of performance and information technology at KLS, developed over the last 2-3 years where we have the legal mandate, in the public sector (which represents about 30 percent of the annual GDP), it is found that the attention given to technology in all its dimensions is not appropriate. In key institutions, such as: The General Directorate of Taxation, the National Civil Protection Agency, the Institute of Energy, Water and Environment, the Authority for Electronic and Post Communications, etc., lacks strategies and action plans for development and proper implementation of new information technologies. The audit on internet use in public administration finds a lack of procedures for managing incidents on computer platforms and their nets; inadequate use (for work purposes) of internet trafficking and lack of control of users, increasing the risk of access to data.

If we refer to the use of technology in the private sector, from the share that occupys different sectors at GDP, it is found that the largest weight is based on handwork or basic technology, such as agriculture and fishing, trade and transport, hotel and food services, and of course construction and the Facebook industry. The activities requiring greater and more contemporary use of technology, such as information and communication, financial and security activities, scientific research, etc., reach up to 1012 percent of GDP, and, under our optics, the use of technology to make realistic and reap benefits, even in these industries remains low and far from effective use, as in developed or developing countries of the world. Perhaps it is not the case that even in the informal economy, illegal activities inside and abroad focus on activities with little or no technology.

But what Albanians use little in production compensates for overconsummation, using entertainment and information/communication technology. In Albania, for example, the number of active mobile services in 2018 was about 2.7 million (of Albania's 2.85 million inhabitants), generating about six billion minutes a year, and the trend is on the rise. With the passage of mobile infrastructure from the 4G network to the 5G, not only use but the entire economy can be re-organized around technology as its backbone. 5G technology promises artificial intelligence, autonomous transportation, civil and military vehicles, smart cities, where traffic lights are activated according to the dynamic flow of cars and lighting follows the setting of the sun, hospitals where operations are conducted through a robot run by a doctor 10,000 miles away, and governments that can control the actual temperature and blood pressure of its citizens. Such technology is not just an economic engine, which will increase by hundreds or thousands of “power” the attractive force towards prosperity. In the wrong hands, it can become an Oriental control instrument.

In a world going back to bipolarity, but already economics, China is consolidating its business model, communist capitalism. Chinese giants like “Tencent”, “Hawei”, “ZTE”, influenced by their government, offers 5G technology at prices of up to 40 percent lower than their Western competitors. Chinese products, like those Japanese in the 1980s, are already making a big leap, out of quantity without quality, to price-free quality. In these conditions, encouraged and from the low income level both for the individual and for the government, Albanians find it difficult to resist the temptation to flirt technologically with the Chinese. It took continued American intervention last December to remind us that as a NATO member, our priority should be not just 5G technology, but security 5G.

Just remember that a large number of Albanian teenagers use the “TikTok” app, which the American government considers a source of spying on certain Chinese groupings or that the Chinese Communist Party can force any Chinese economic operator to discover the confidential data it possesses, exposing the economy of a country or region to the decisions of the Beijing Political Bureau, to begin to imagine the danger that threatens us and our economic and political partners, today and in the future, from the model of communist capital.

Under these conditions, in advance of the government's decision to sign a memorandum of co-operation with the US government in December 2019, KLSH, from performance audit conducted at AKEP, finalised with decision No. 188, dt. Her chairman's 31.12.2019 recommended strongly that:

a) The KEP conducts a preliminary analysis of the consequences and effects that will bring implementation of 5G technology to our country. The integration of the 5th generation (5G) technology in Albania necessarily requires that it be carried out based on a national, detailed and comprehensive plan of action, with the aim of uninhibited protection from unauthorized access, alienation, misuse or non-dispositability of a valuable asset to the Albanian consumer, such as information.

Implementation of this technology should have as the main obligation to respect our obligations in the area of security as NATO member and US strategic partner.

b) The KLSB recommends establishing a National Committee on Strategic Investment assessment in our country, such as the case of 5G technology. There must be representatives in this community not only of the economic field but also of the security, IT, defence, and so on. A special legal base from Albania's Parliament must be adopted for this. The tasks of this committee must include among other things.

The assessment is whether 5G technology providers are subject to control by a foreign government, without an independent judicial process;

The assessment is whether network suppliers and service providers are financed transparently, using the best practices in procurement, investment and contracting;

The assessment is whether service providers have ownership, partnership and government transparent corporate structures;

The assessment of whether bidders are an example of innovation and respect for law enforcement and intellectual property rights and; assessing the risk and security that providers and network technologies create a safe environment, independence from government influence and compliance with industry standards.

The axioma of the work of this committee should be respecting our status as a NATO member, considered the biggest strategic investment in the field of national security that Albania has achieved in its existence as a state.

The findings and recommendations of this audit were released by the authors of this writing even at the summit on Cyber Security, organised in the American Senate on Tuesday. 03.02.2020, as well as the meeting with American colleagues of the Governing Accounting Office in Washington, witnessing once again where the KLSH anchors its current and future values and vision.