A defence official has stated that the Ministry of Defence is actively investigating the potential threats associated with Chinese-made vehicles, while staff have been instructed to avoid talking about secret information in any vehicles.
Safety Guidance for Defence Staff
In a recently aired appearance on LBC, Luke Pollard addressed claims that Ministry of Defence staff have been told not to discuss secret material while travelling in China-made cars.
He stated that the MoD is “looking into” cars from China within its fleets, however noted that safety is a issue in every modern vehicles.
Our department has a collection of thousands of vehicles in the MoD and those vehicles represent a very small number.
But regardless of if you’re driving a vehicle from China or a non-Chinese car, what we’ve asked our staff is not to plug MoD devices into their vehicle, to avoid having conversations at a secret level in any vehicle, because of the increasing threats of surveillance that are present in all vehicle, to restrict those confidential talks in secure locations. This is a wise and sensible thing for anyone worried about security.
After it was put to him that it would be prudent for the MoD to cease using all Chinese vehicles, Pollard replied: ‘That’s exactly what we’re investigating at the present time.”
Wider Security Background
The announcement comes as reports from Norway and Denmark have warned the UK to the existence of multi-purpose shutdown mechanisms in Chinese-made buses, which could enable the Chinese government to switch off buses and bring chaos to public transit.
Furthermore, a Russia spy ship was reportedly shining lasers at RAF pilots, described as a “extremely risky” act by defence officials.
The wider security environment underscores the importance of strong measures and caution in every areas of official operations, including transport use to communication practices.
