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Geely's Zeekr EVs bound for Europe. A Chinese surveillance expert has warned that China could control the brakes and steering of British electric cars remotely Credit: BLOOMBERG
Groups linked to the Chinese government could control the brakes of British electric vehicles remotely, a report by a Chinese surveillance expert has suggested.
The report by Christopher Balding, who is also the founder of New Kite Data Labs, a non-profit think-tank, warned that some of the systems within electric vehicles were susceptible to being overridden remotely, with the brakes and steering potential targets.
He told The Daily Telegraph that this could easily apply in the UK in the future as the number of electric vehicles increased.
In the report titled “Chinese Automobile Surveillance Capabilities”, Mr Balding writes: “The second potential risk moves beyond simple monitoring and surveillance, such as speed, location, and direction data access, but the ability to control specific systems within the automobile.
“Security researchers for sometime noted the risks of hacking to key components of electrical vehicles, but this is slightly different such that malware in a component provides not just access to the system and operational data, but control over a specific system.
“This would mean control over the braking system or on-board microphone.”
Compromise
Mr Balding, who is also a senior fellow at global human rights think-tank The Henry Jackson Society, told The Telegraph: “Government-linked groups would be able to listen into a car, or compromise the braking system, as they would have the component car code from the manufacturer and access through preknown access points.”He was speaking to The Telegraph after authoring the report for New Kite Data Labs, which collects surveillance data from China and looks at Chinese data technology and potential security risks around it.
The report outlines evidence it has found that it says shows that Chinese firms and authorities have broad access to automobile data in connected electric vehicles, including location.
It specifically raises concerns over the security risks around EV batteries, which it says contain large amounts of code which allow for significant monitoring capabilities and the potential for systems to be controlled remotely.
It comes as there are increasing concerns within the UK about China’s potential domination of the electric vehicle market in years to come and how it might use technology to harvest information.
Some of this stems from the UK’s ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles comes in 2030, with China predicted to dominate the UK market because of its prowess in making cheap electric cars.
Last month, The Telegraph reported that a cross-party group of MPs warned the Government that Britain was poised to cede control of the “critical infrastructure” of its car market to Beijing “with all the attendant security risks”.
Mr Balding believes this could be taken one stage further with bodies in China able to hack into vehicle systems and affecting how they operate.
‘Heart and brain’
He said this could be done through the vehicle’s battery, which he described as the “heart and brain” of the car as it was linked to all of the car’s other systems.He said: “The battery actually has to deal with every individual system, it feeds power to feed the entertainment system, it is going to feed the braking system.
“The issue is then moving laterally [...] And moving laterally means, if I get into the entertainment system, I can move my way laterally into the battery, and then into the braking system or the microphone, and I’ll be able to take over some of these different systems.”
He stressed that he had not yet seen evidence of any agency in China taking control of a vehicle either within China or abroad, or listening in on any motorists conversations. However, he said that he had consulted a number of people in the electric vehicle sector who said these hacks were possible.
While he admitted taking over the control of the car may be an extreme example but said that his think-tank had data from China which clearly showed that the government could have access to car data. He said this data could pinpoint how many people are in the car, and even whether they are wearing a seatbelt.
He said: “The more likely scenario is rather than a rash of Brits dying because the brakes don’t work, is that Chinese organisations collect data on you, like recordings which could be later used against you.”
He added that while he couldn’t definitively say yet that this is what was happening, the make-up of electric vehicles meant they “absolutely had the capability”.
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