A defense minister has confirmed that the Ministry of Defence is actively examining the potential threats posed by Chinese-made cars, while staff have been told to refrain from talking about secret information in all cars.
Safety Guidance for MoD Staff
In a recently aired appearance on LBC, a defence minister commented on claims that Ministry of Defence staff have been told not to discuss secret material while travelling in Chinese cars.
He said that the MoD is “looking into” cars from China within its fleets, but emphasised that safety is a issue in every modern cars.
We have a collection of tens of thousands of vehicles in the MoD and those vehicles represent a tiny fraction.
But regardless of if you’re traveling in a vehicle from China or a car from another country, our instruction to our staff is not to plug MoD technology into their vehicle, to avoid having discussions at a secret level in any car, due to the growing risks of eavesdropping that are present in all automobile, to only have those secret conversations in protected areas. This is a prudent and reasonable thing for anyone worried about safety.
When it was suggested that it would be prudent for the MoD to cease using all cars from China, Pollard responded: That is exactly what we are looking into at the moment.”
Wider Defence Context
This revelation follows claims from Scandinavian countries have warned the UK to the existence of multi-purpose shutdown mechanisms in Chinese-made buses, which could enable China to disable public transport and bring chaos to public transit.
Additionally, a Russia spy ship was reportedly shining lasers at RAF aircrew, described as a “extremely risky” act by defence officials.
The broader security environment highlights the importance of robust protocols and caution in every aspects of official activities, including transport usage to communication habits.
