Now a threat to China’s national security

Members of the People’s Liberation Army who desperately want to get to work with all the style and panache that Elon Musk’s supercharged cars offer are apparently out of luck. Citing “national security” concerns, the Chinese government has reportedly banned the use of Tesla vehicles by state and military employees on certain government property.

According to reports from the Wall Street newspaper and Bloomberg, the People’s Republic of China is concerned that Tesla’s high-tech cars could be a source of data leaks or foreign espionage. Of particular concern is the high number of internal sensors and cameras installed in Tesla vehicles, which could be used to channel sensitive data “to the United States”.

The ban ordinance is said to have been issued by the Chinese military and prohibits government officials from using the vehicles on certain government and military properties, as well as “Drive to residential complexes for families of staff working in sensitive industries and public agencies.” The ban follows a “government security review” of Tesla by the government, reports the WSJ, which apparently did not go very well.

The article Raised concerns about data collected by vehicles and Tesla, including vehicle location data and mobile phone contact lists synchronized with the car’s internal systems.

We recently covered how the modern car is essentially a treasure house of personal data (which can be shared, sold, or stolen), so China’s concerns are not without merit.

On top of that, Tesla had a handful of questionable security incidents over the years. In 2016, security researchers – in China, nothing less –demonstrated that they could hack company cars remotely via their wifi; hackers had the ability to pump the brakes, open the trunk and turn the vehicle wipers on and off. A recent episode in which a hacker was able to gain access to hundreds of the company’s internal security cameras through a third-party vendor also raised concerns.

The ban is also indicative of how the tech industry has become an area of ​​political conflict between the United States and China. Under President Trump, the United States moved to aggressively crack down over any Chinese tech company, he deemed a “national security” threat – blacklisting dozens of companies and trying to censor their access to the American public while cutting them off from financial investment. Whether China responds in kind seems about the same for the course.