Spies have stepped up their efforts to steal intellectual property related to COVID-19 research, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) has warned in a bulletin issued May 13.
On the same day the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States issued its own warning that China is snooping for COVID-19 data and research.
CSIS did not single out China in its bulletin, but a veteran from CSIS told the Globe and Mail that China is the biggest security threat.
“The biopharmaceutical and health care sectors are at a significantly high risk at this time as many countries are accelerating their COVID-19 research and development to support the pandemic response,” CISIS said in the document.
The federal government has announced recent investments of $1.2 billion and the provinces have also offered funding, such as $230,000 this week for vaccine research by a team at the University of Guelph.
“CSIS is particularly concerned about this threat in relation to state-sponsored activities of hostile states secretly seeking strategic or competitive advantage.”
Jim Hinton, a patent lawyer based in Kitchener, Ont., told the Globe and Mail that he believes CSIS has already learned that foreign actors have compromised COVID-19 research.
“You don’t put out something like this unless there has been something to put you on notice. This is a reactionary document.”
He said that, in his opinion, Canadian universities don’t have the same level of concern about the leakage of intellectual property.
“I think there is a naivete they have that they are working for the public good so that if something gets out, it doesn’t really matter.”
There have been criminal charges laid in the United States over Chinese employees stealing agriculture-related research, including seeds from plant-breeding programs.
