Canadian officials were involved in the investigation of an intern accused of spying at NATO’s military headquarters from the outset, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Wednesday.

He said “lessons” should be taken from situations like this, but stopped short of saying that the country’s security screening process was being reviewed in light of the allegations.

A Canadian woman was recently arrested by Belgian authorities on suspicion of espionage.

The European country did not release her name as part of the judicial process and only stated that she was a “Canadian national of Chinese origin.”

…

A CBC News investigation, however, has identified the woman as Biwei Zhang, a systems engineer with a background in economics. Her online resumé suggests she previously worked for the Canadian Space Agency and Statistics Canada.

…

Zhang is currently being held in custody with a further closed-door hearing to be held in Brussels next week.

Security sources, speaking to media in Europe, including the Reuters news agency, have said the intern allegedly exhibited suspicious behaviour that drew the attention of NATO’s internal security services.

She was … excessively curious about her colleagues, had a tendency to enter areas where she was not authorized and apparently accessed files outside her professional remit in SHAPE’s IT Department [SHAPE stands for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, it is the military headquarters of NATO in Mons, Belgium].

Someone working in that section would normally have broad access to the systems that support NATO’s strategic military headquarters, including network operations, cybersecurity and data centre servers.

However, interns do not have as much freedom as full-time staff members and would be subject to closer supervision and face restricted access permissions.

…