The Biden administration will investigate whether Chinese-made “smart cars” present a national security risk by gathering the personal data of their owners and sharing it overseas.
The White House announced that Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo would organize an investigation into whether or not Chinese smart cars are gathering American users’ personal data and sharing it with China. Most American vehicles have been collecting data on users for years, from their location data to their driving habits. Many of these vehicles collect data on their owners without users realizing it. What’s worried some lawmakers is how that data is used, and where it goes.
“Most cars these days are ‘connected’ — they are like smart phones on wheels,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “These cars are connected to our phones, to navigation systems, to critical infrastructure, and to the companies that made them. Connected vehicles from China could collect sensitive data about our citizens and our infrastructure and send this data back to the People’s Republic of China. These vehicles could be remotely accessed or disabled.”
“Imagine if there were thousands or hundreds of thousands of Chinese-connected vehicles on American roads that could be immediately and simultaneously disabled by somebody in Beijing,” Raimondo said in a statement. “So it’s scary to contemplate the cyber risks, espionage risks that these pose.”
The Commerce Department issued an advanced notice of rulemaking on Thursday that will seek insight from the public and from the automotive industry on how to secure the digital information collected and transmitted by smart cars. The insights will then be used to formulate regulations for governing the technology.
Very few Chinese cars are imported into the U.S. due to high tariffs. Some Chinese manufacturers have attempted to get around these tariffs by setting up factories in countries like Mexico.
Vehicles typically collect three types of data, Privacy4Cars founder Andrea Amico told the Washington Examiner. The first are simple data points such as how often a car is turned on, the weight that activates an airbag, and other necessary vehicular functions. The second type is metrics that manufacturers and insurance providers desire, such as GPS location, speed rates, and safety practices. The third is data provided to third parties like SiriusXM, such as what radio channels are required. A lot of this data is relatively useful and safe for Americans, who barely realize it is being collected.
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The vast majority of automakers do not disclose what data they collect and who it is sold to, according to a study done by Mozilla. This makes it unclear where that data is going or where it is being sold. That data could be sold to hundreds of companies, including Chinese ones.
Biden issued an executive order on Wednesday empowering the Department of Justice to block the sale and sharing of American data with “countries of concern,” like Iran or China.
