China ‘will use electric cars to spy on Britain’

Remote car surveillance. It is possible thanks to the existence of “cellular modules”.

These tiny components are found in a wide range of modern devices, including cars, smart meters, computers, electric vehicle chargers, and home appliances, and are used to establish connections to the Internet to transmit vast amounts of data about their environments.

These modules monitor and control a car’s systems, processing software updates to improve vehicle performance.

However, they are also potentially open to espionage and malicious interference.

China dominates the global market in module supply, with Chinese components also embedded in products from non-Chinese companies.

Charles Parton, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said China could use the technology to extract “massive amounts of data” while also sending commands to cars to “operate in a malicious manner.”

Under the Government Procurement Bill, ministers can bar Chinese companies from accessing sensitive areas, such as the supply of government cars.

However, Parton, a former British diplomat who spent 22 years specializing in China, said the country’s cellular modules still pose a security risk if they remain in the vehicles of British citizens in general.

“Suppose I buy a car with one of these Chinese modules and have been invited to give a talk at a defense establishment,” he said. “If that car has cameras, they could use the modules to turn on the cameras and take the data.

“Ultimately, you need to ban any Chinese modules on any vehicle, and you’d have to do that pretty quickly.”

Loughton said the government should consider going beyond the existing 10 percent tariff on Chinese cars. “We’re going to have to see if we’re going to have import controls on these,” he said.