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An defense minister has revealed that the MoD is currently looking into the potential threats associated with Chinese-made vehicles, while personnel have been instructed to refrain from discussing secret matters in all cars.

Safety Advice for Defence Personnel

In a recent interview on LBC, Luke Pollard commented on claims that MoD staff have been instructed not to discuss classified material while travelling in China-made vehicles.

He stated that the MoD is “examining” cars from China within its vehicle pools, but emphasised that safety is a issue in all modern vehicles.

Our department has a fleet of thousands of cars in the Ministry of Defence and those vehicles account for a tiny fraction.

However regardless of if you’re traveling in a vehicle from China or a car from another country, our instruction to our staff is not to plug MoD devices into their vehicle, not to have conversations at a classified classification in any vehicle, because of the increasing threats of surveillance that exist in every single vehicle, to only have those secret conversations in secure locations. This is a prudent and reasonable thing for everyone worried about safety.

When it was suggested that it would be prudent for the MoD to cease using all cars from China, the minister replied: ‘That’s precisely what we are looking into at the moment.”

Wider Defence Context

This revelation comes as reports from Norway and Denmark have warned the UK to the existence of multi-purpose kill switches in Chinese-made buses, which could enable the Chinese government to disable buses and bring chaos to public transit.

Furthermore, a Russian spy ship has been directing laser beams at RAF pilots, described as a “extremely risky” act by defence officials.

This wider security environment highlights the importance of strong measures and caution in all areas of government operations, including transport usage to communication practices.