An defence minister has revealed that the Ministry of Defence is actively examining the possible threats associated with Chinese vehicles, while staff have been instructed to refrain from talking about secret information in all cars.
Safety Guidance for Defence Personnel
During a recently aired interview on LBC, a defence minister addressed claims that MoD officials have been told not to talk about classified information while riding in Chinese cars.
He said that the ministry is “looking into” Chinese vehicles within its fleets, but emphasised that security is a concern in every contemporary vehicles.
We have a fleet of thousands of vehicles in the MoD and Chinese ones account for a tiny fraction.
But regardless of if you’re driving a vehicle from China or a car from another country, what we’ve asked our staff is not to plug MoD technology into their vehicle, not to have conversations at a secret level in any kind of vehicle, because of the increasing risks of surveillance that exist in all vehicle, to restrict those confidential conversations in secure locations. This is a prudent and reasonable thing for anyone concerned about security.
After it was put to him that it would be prudent for the ministry to stop using every Chinese vehicles, Pollard replied: That is precisely what we’re investigating at the present time.”
Wider Defence Context
This revelation comes as claims from Norway and Denmark have alerted the United Kingdom to the presence of multi-purpose shutdown mechanisms in Chinese-made electric buses, which could enable the Chinese government to disable public transport and bring disruption to public transit.
Furthermore, a Russia spy ship was reportedly shining lasers at Royal Air Force aircrew, described as a “highly dangerous” act by defence officials.
The wider defence environment underscores the significance of robust measures and vigilance in every aspects of official operations, including vehicle usage to communication habits.
