How worried should we be?

[dgs99]

Headlines in todays paper!

"Ministers are warning that Chinese electric cars imported to the UK will enable Beijing to spy on British citizens"

Is it another of those conspiracy theories?

 

[Gomev]

Headlines in todays paper!

"Ministers are warning that Chinese electric cars imported to the UK will enable Beijing to spy on British citizens"

Is it another of those conspiracy theories?

No it's absolutely real, just like those men never went to the moon.

 

[DBedford]

And you have been thinking all along the Chinese don’t know about your weekly visits to Tesco??

Your phone, your computer, your TV all made in China, so I think that ship has sailed!!

 

[maskull]

And the Daily Fail will run with this of course , along with the MPs whose shares are in VW,Tesla and all the other overpriced EVs . My pre facelift 5 is safe I think

 

[Paul Mason]

My MG5 can only just communicate with chargers; I think China is beyond its reach!

 

[Alb]

To some extent it's probably true but that equally applies to every other manufacturer of a "connected" car, EV or not.

 

[Deep purple]

Your pre facelift MG5 has its own connection to the phone system as it will automatically call the emergency services if you have an accident or press the button by the interior light switch (as I found out in error!). The E call system tells the operator exactly where you are and what emergency systems in the car have been activated (eg airbags etc). It also turns on the car's microphone so you can speak to the operator. This works even if you don't have a mobile phone in the car.
If the car can do this already it is only a small step for it to send out data to other recipients.
Until someone like GCHQ does an in-depth trawl through all the car's software and a car is stripped down to its basic components no one can state that there is no risk.
Why have many countries banned the use of Chinese made technology in Government systems, when this decision costs them a lot of money for more expensive home manufactured kit?
If you were the Chinese government and the opportunity arose to insert controllable software or hardware into cars destined for the free world, would you take it?
If they have done this I am not sure what would happen if they were found out, might be quite interesting politically! And also mess up going to no new ICEs from 2030.

 

[tsedge]

I heard that all conspiracy theories are in fact true, THEY just don't want you to know

I welcome my life being broadcast to the CCP HQ, hope they find it more interesting than I do, perhaps they'll be so kind as to share their insights?

Many people would love to be such a centre of attention, they should advertise it as a feature!!

 

[Deep purple]

At least as you get older the Chinese could tell you how to get home and where you are supposed to be going.

 

[Rolfe]

A few months ago I watched one of these MacMaster anti-EV videos for a laugh. He was banging on about this, how the whole point of EVs is to allow the entire population to be spied on. (I'm not sure if he was blaming the Chinese or GCHQ, mind you.) This is probably where the "senior government source" is getting his information from actually.

In the comments, someone pointed out that he paid for his charging session using Apple Pay. Bwahahahaha.

 

[5teep]

Big stink a couple of years ago about Huawei phones spying on us wqhich led to them being banned in the US. Of course nobody mentioned Google spying on us in a much more insidious way.

 

[DBedford]

One is Communist the other is Capitalist. The difference is just in the spelling of the words!!!

 

[Gomev]

I heard that all conspiracy theories are in fact true, THEY just don't want you to know

I welcome my life being broadcast to the CCP HQ, hope they find it more interesting than I do, perhaps they'll be so kind as to share their insights?

Many people would love to be such a centre of attention, they should advertise it as a feature!!

All those Tik Tokkers and Instagrammers and Facebookers will dive in to EVs to be the centre of attention

 

[oldchappers]

Headlines in todays paper!

"Ministers are warning that Chinese electric cars imported to the UK will enable Beijing to spy on British citizens"

Is it another of those conspiracy theories?

Headlines in todays paper!

"Ministers are warning that Chinese electric cars imported to the UK will enable Beijing to spy on British citizens"

Is it another of those conspiracy theories?

Probably just trying to get us to buy more expensive cars. I think that horse has well and truly bolted as no one reads the T&C’s or worries about their cookies.

 

[Naveen]

To some extent it's probably true but that equally applies to every other manufacturer of a "connected" car, EV or not.

I agree more worried about rogue hackers

 

[sandra54]

Headlines in todays paper!

"Ministers are warning that Chinese electric cars imported to the UK will enable Beijing to spy on British citizens"

Is it another of those conspiracy theories?

Oh if only we had British manufactured Ev cars and batteries …. Still have to get the chips from China though. If my phone is listening to me I’m not worried about my car

 

[Naveen]

Oh if only we had British manufactured Ev cars and batteries …. Still have to get the chips from China though. If my phone is listening to me I’m not worried about my car

MG4 cheap as chips

 

[oldchappers]

Oh if only we had British manufactured Ev cars and batteries …. Still have to get the chips from China though. If my phone is listening to me I’m not worried about my car

What she said.

 

[Rolfe]

That YouTube guy with the down on EVs was on about how they'd be used to spy on everyone, then paid for the charge on his electric Porsche (which he hates) with ApplePay.

 

[luis]

I have an interesting experience I'd like to share which is possibly relevant to this thread.

My particular ZS EV Trophy Connect Long Range has a software bug with the navigation - I seem to get other people's home/work settings and also their recent destinations.

NOTE #1: I use CarPlay most of the time so this doesn't bother me much, but in context - this bug of mine may reveal interesting information on MG.

NOTE #2: I have informed my dealer twice about this issue and mentioned the words "Data Leak" clearly both times, but they didn't seem too bothered.

So, whatever home/work point is set to, or if I clear my recent destinations - the car always seems to have different addresses when I get back to it the next day.

First I thought it was in some sort of Demo mode, but the addresses are international (France, Germany, Thailand, UK, etc) - and some are business names, some are just post codes, some are full addresses - they seem genuine. I considered driving up to a UK address and see if they have an MG, but so far they've all been a bit too far for me to visit.

My current conclusions are:

#1 - MG's servers are collecting all destinations entered by some of their cars - globally - which doesn't seem appropriate to me. I can fully understand collecting anonymous data on car performance - but your home address doesn't seem very anonymous.

#2 - MG's servers are somehow re-filling my car with all that data, implying that they have the ability to do so, and thus can remotely change navigation data - again, doesn't seem right to me. The navigation should be 100% locally run, and only require traffic updates.

I could, of course, be completely wrong and my car truly is in "demo mode" but I can't find such a setting anywhere, my dealers don't seem to know anything about it, and last time I checked, nobody on the forum had mentioned anything like this either...

Any thoughts?

PS - the data may also easily come from non-EV MG cars - this is more of an MG thing, rather than an EV thing.