A defense minister has confirmed that the Ministry of Defence is actively examining the possible threats associated with Chinese-made cars, while staff have been advised to refrain from talking about classified matters in any cars.
Security Guidance for Defence Personnel
During a recent interview on LBC, Luke Pollard addressed claims that MoD staff have been instructed not to talk about classified information while riding in China-made vehicles.
The minister stated that the MoD is “investigating” Chinese vehicles within its fleets, but emphasised that safety is a concern in every contemporary vehicles.
Our department has a collection of thousands of vehicles in the Ministry of Defence and Chinese ones account for a tiny fraction.
But whether you’re traveling in a vehicle from China or a non-Chinese car, our instruction to our people is not to plug MoD devices into their vehicle, to avoid having discussions at a classified level in any car, because of the increasing threats of eavesdropping that exist in every single vehicle, to only have those secret conversations in secure locations. That’s a wise and reasonable thing for anyone worried about safety.
After it was put to him that it would be wise for the MoD to stop using every cars from China, the minister responded: ‘That’s exactly what we’re investigating at the present time.”
Wider Defence Background
The revelation comes as reports from Norway and Denmark have alerted the United Kingdom to the presence of multi-purpose shutdown mechanisms in Chinese-made buses, which could enable China to switch off buses and cause disruption to public transit.
Furthermore, a Russia spy ship was reportedly shining lasers at Royal Air Force pilots, described as a “extremely risky” act by defence officials.
The wider security situation highlights the significance of robust measures and caution in every areas of government activities, including vehicle usage to communication habits.
