Amid growing concern As for China’s growing global data-gathering tools, the newly divided US Congress is using a new assessment that Chinese technology could be a Trojan horse.
In a letter to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which was shared exclusively by WIRED, Representative August Pfluger asks difficult questions about whether Washington is really prepared for the security threat posed by the arrival of China-made smart and autonomous vehicles (AVs). ) in the United States.
“I am concerned that the lack of US oversight of AV technology has opened the door to foreign spying on American soil, as Chinese companies can send information to the People’s Republic of China,” Pfluger wrote.
While AV technology may be a few years away from commercial use, pilot projects are already on the roads around the world. As of earlier this year, more than 1,000 AutoX taxis were on the roads in California. AutoX, a Chinese startup backed by one of the communist country’s largest state-owned auto companies, was approved by California in 2020.
As the American authorities have given the green light to these projects, Pfluger writes, “there is still a lack of control over data management.”
Earlier this year, WIRED reported on the growing national security risks posed by Chinese-made cars. The amount of goods collected by these vehicles can make the countries they are facing the best places for the United States and other Western countries. Beijing has already pioneered the use of big data analytics to identify opponents at home, and concerns have grown that these techniques could be exported.
Pfluger submitted a list of questions to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which oversees the use of AVs, and asked the administrator to explain how he saw the national security threat posed by these Chinese companies.
“Has NHTSA worked independently, or in cooperation with other cities or governments, to limit or prevent Chinese companies from collecting sensitive information from American sources, including government or military intelligence, and sharing that information abroad?” Pfluger writes.
China has also been concerned about American-made smart and electric cars. Earlier this year, for example, Beijing imposed strict restrictions on where Teslas could drive, especially around military bases, during Communist Party rallies.
Pfluger suggests in his letter that China could use “autonomous and connected vehicles as a way to integrate their systems and technology into our nation building.” The United States, like many of its allies, has already banned the Chinese company Huawei from building 5G infrastructure, but next-generation cars will be able to access e-mails, messages, and calls that were never before, and they would have moved cameras. , able to draw a list of the most important things.
As Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told a House committee last week, “there are dangers in having communications systems in the hands of countries that don’t protect freedoms and liberties the way we do.” FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that China has hacked more of the United States than all other countries combined, through “the most extensive cyber espionage operations against U.S. industries, organizations, and opponents.”
