ELECTRIC cars imported from China will help Beijing to spy on Brits, ministers have warned.
China is expected to dominate the UK market as Britain moves to hit its net zero targets with a ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles being introduced in 2030.
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However, government sources have expressed fears that technology embedded in the vehicles could be used to compile huge amounts of information including video footage, audio recordings and location data.
It is also feared the cars could be exposed to remote interference and even disabled.
It comes as a cross-party group of MPs warned the Government that the UK is ceding control of the “critical infrastructure” of its car market to Beijing “with all the attendant security risks”.
A senior government source told The Telegraph: “If it is manufactured in a country like China, how certain can you be that it won’t be a vehicle for collecting intel and data? If you have electric vehicles manufactured by countries who are already using technology to spy, why would they not do the same here?
“They are high-risk products. We know that China always thinks in very long terms. So if they were providing a product that could do more than just deliver the consumer’s desire to go from A to B, why would they not be doing it?”
The source added: “It will be used with all of the data that they collect, and that’s how it becomes incredibly valuable and quite dangerous.”
A Government minister told the paper they shared the concerns, saying: “That is the world we’re going into.”
In 2020, the Government banned the Chinese firm Huawei from the UK’s 5G networks, over spying fears.
In January this year, a Chinese tracking device was discovered hidden in a UK Government car, according to an intelligence officer.
The former home secretary Dame Priti Patel said Chinese surveillance in cars posed a “realistic risk”.
She said: “All we have to do is look at how government tied themselves up with things such as 5G.”
Those fears have been heightened by the rapid penetration of Chinese cars into the UK market.
Last month, Chris Stark, the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, an independent advisory body, told MPs that while Germany was currently the biggest supplier of cars to the UK, China was rapidly moving into second place and looked to eventually take the top spot.
It is also feared that UK-based car manufacturers could end up effectively subsidising cheaper Chinese imports, if they fail to meet targets for phasing out petrol engine sales.
Under proposals being considered for a zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate, 22 per cent of companies’ new car sales in 2024 will have to be zero emission models, with that proportion increasing to 80 per cent by 2030.
Any manufacturer failing to hit the target could face paying a fine or having to buy “credits” from companies that exceed the target, with Chinese electric car companies and Chinese-sourced Teslas expected to benefit in particular.
Fears about a security threat from Chinese electric vehicles are expected to strengthen calls for the ZEV mandate to be diluted.
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch is thought to have raised concerns with Cabinet colleagues about the wider impact of the policy.
UK members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international cross-party alliance, have warned without urgent action the British car industry risks being “undercut to the point of extinction” by China.
The group, which includes Conservative MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Labour’s Sarah Champion, said in a statement that the UK was “sleep-walking” into being “catastrophically undercut”.
“In 2022, 88 per cent of all passenger kilometres in Great Britain we travelled in cars,” they said. “It is hard to conceive of a more critical infrastructure to everyday life in the UK, and it is absolutely wrong to allow control of such a key industry to be handed to authoritarian Beijing.”
It warned that without action, the UK would be “flooded” with Chinese cars and batteries along “with all the attendant security risks”.
The group also added the Government needed to provide answers on how Britain would achieve net zero without being “utterly dependent on China” and what “assessment has been made of the security risks”.
Remote surveillance of cars is possible thorough what is known as “cellular modules”.
These components are already in a number of modern gadgets such as smart meters, computers, electric vehicle chargers and white goods.
The establish an internet connection to transmit large amounts of data about their environments.
The modules in cars can process software update to improve the vehicles performance.
However, they are potentially open to spying and interference.
China dominates the global market for supplying the modules.
Charles Parton, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said China could possibly use the technology to extract “massive amounts of data”, while also sending commands to cars to “operate in a malicious way”.
A government spokesman said: “We will never compromise our national security and are continuing to strengthen our infrastructure and supply chain resilience to protect UK economic security.
“We have invested £2billion into accelerating the transition to electric vehicles, and grants have been in place for over a decade to support the transition and support the UK electric car industry.
“We’ve developed requirements for all car manufacturers to mitigate against cyber threats in their designs and monitor the risk through the life of their vehicles – we’re exploring options to make these mandatory for all new cars, vans and trucks in Great Britain.
“The ZEV mandate is specifically designed to support existing manufacturers with their transition, providing flexibilities so they can comply with targets over time and avoid the need to purchase credits from companies overseas.”
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