The Special Boat Service (SBS), Britain’s elite maritime counter-terrorism and special operations unit, has banned Chinese-made electric cars from its headquarters in Poole because it fears they could be used for spying.
There are growing fears that the cars’ sensors, which are normally used to map road conditions, could be accessed by Beijing and used covertly to gather intelligence on British military installations. Last year, a soldier driving a Chinese-built electric Volvo was stopped from entering the SBS camp as a “security precaution”, a defence source told The Telegraph.
Under the Data Security Law of the People’s Republic of China, the state may compel firms to disclose data for national security purposes.
Joe Jarnecki, a research fellow for cyber and technology at the Royal United Services Institute, said: “It is unlikely a majority of these cars have sufficient privacy and security features to resist the determined activities of highly determined state actors, particularly if they have the weight of the law on their side, like China does.”
British intelligence officials have repeatedly warned of the risk Beijing poses to British security.
Sir Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, said in October: “Do Chinese state actors present a UK national security threat? The answer is, of course, yes they do, every day.”
In June, MI5 warned that Chinese spies were also targeting British government and military staff on employment websites such as LinkedIn in an effort to access classified or sensitive information.
(Picture: Yay Images)
