Amid growing concern Regarding China’s burgeoning international data collection apparatus, a newly divided US Congress is imposing new scrutiny on the possibility that imported Chinese technology could be a Trojan horse.
In a letter to the US National Highway Traffic Safety AdministrationShared exclusively with WIRED, Representative August Pfluger asked some tough questions about whether Washington is truly prepared for the security threat posed by a wave of Chinese-made autonomous and intelligent vehicles (AVs). export to the United States or not.
“I remain concerned that the lack of US surveillance of AV technology has opened the door for a foreign country to spy on US soil, as Chinese companies have the ability to transfer vital data. to the People’s Republic of China,” wrote Pfluger.
Although AV technology may be several years away from widespread commercial use, pilot projects are already underway around the world. As of the beginning of this year, more than 1,000 self-driving taxis AutoX was on the roads in California. AutoX, a Chinese startup backed by one of the largest state-owned auto companies in the communist country, was approved by California in 2020.
When US regulators gave the green light to those pilot projects, Pfluger wrote, “there was still a serious lack of oversight over their data governance.”
This early year, WIRED reported on increased national security problems caused by Chinese-made vehicles. The vast trove of data gathered by these vehicles could give opposing nations an unprecedented vantage point into the United States and other Western nations. Beijing has pioneered the use of big data analytics to identify dissidents at home and is concerned that such tactics could be deployed abroad.
Pfluger sent a detailed list of questions to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which regulates AV use, and asked the regulator to explain how it considers risk. national security risks posed by these Chinese companies.
“Does NHTSA work independently or in concert with other cities or local governments to limit or prevent Chinese-owned companies from collecting sensitive information from U.S. infrastructure, including include information about sensitive military or government facilities and then share that information abroad?” Pfluger wrote.
China has certainly worried about American-made smart and electric vehicles. For example, earlier this year, Beijing placed company restrictions about where Teslas can drive, especially around military installations, between high-level Communist Party meetings.
Pfluger emphasized in its letter that China could use “autonomous and connected vehicles as an avenue to incorporate their systems and technologies into our country’s infrastructure.” “. The United States, like most of its allies, has banned Chinese giant Huawei from building 5G infrastructure, but these next-generation vehicles will have access to a fair amount of email. , messages and phone calls like never before, and will actually be moving cameras. , capable of imaging a wide range of critical infrastructure.
As Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told a House committee last week, there are “risks to having the communications infrastructure in the hands of nation-states that fail to protect freedoms and rights as we do.” FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that China has stolen more data from the United States than all other countries combined, through “large-scale, increasingly sophisticated cyber espionage operations targeting a wide range of industry, organizations, and dissidents in the United States”.
