Chinese electric vehicles still pose a problem national security threat despite Canada lifting its tariff blockade, security experts warn, adding that nothing has changed since the previous federal government raised concerns nearly two years ago.
Yet these experts also warn that the cybersecurity and privacy threats extend beyond Chinese-made vehicles to any internet-connected car, requiring a strong response from Ottawa.
The new trade agreement signed by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on January 16, allows up to 49,000 people. Chinese electric vehicles enter Canada at a significantly reduced tariff rate of 6.1 percent in exchange for China lifting tariffs on Canadian agricultural products.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford blasted the deal, warning not only the impact on the province’s automotive sector but also the cybersecurity problems around Chinese electric vehicles, which he described as “spy vehicles”.
“When you call your cell phone, it’s the Chinese — and I’m not making this up — who are going to listen to your phone conversation,” he told delegates at the Ontario Rural Municipalities Association conference in Toronto last week.
Experts say the possibility of Chinese governments or companies using internet-connected vehicles to listen to drivers’ phone calls or record their movements remains a very real threat, particularly to the Chinese diaspora in Canada.
There are also broader cybersecurity concerns, said Neil Bisson, director of the Global Intelligence Knowledge Network and a retired intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
“It just opens another portal to our infrastructure, both in terms of communication and energy, because we will connect these vehicles to our own electrical infrastructure,” he said in an interview.
“The opportunities to potentially carry out cyberattacks, to shut down critical infrastructure, it’s all there.”
Carney said the electric vehicle deal with China, which includes a provision that half of those imported vehicles must cost less than $35,000 by 2030, will ensure electric vehicles are more affordable for Canadians.
“I think trade has essentially taken precedence over national security,” Bisson said, particularly in the context of Carney’s efforts to diversify the Canadian economy from that of the United States.
“What is unfortunate is that by making this decision, we are isolating ourselves from some of our Five Eye partners, including the United States, who have also declared that Chinese-made electric vehicles pose a threat to national security.”
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In June 2024, as Ottawa considered whether to align U.S. tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to prevent these cheaper models from flooding the North American market, then-Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland made clear that the concerns were not just economic.
“We also look at the national security aspect: the security aspect, including cybersecurity, when it comes to Chinese exports of high-tech items like electric vehicles,” Freeland said.
Shortly after these comments, Canada finally followed through by imposing 100% tariffs on all electric vehicles manufactured in China.
In September of that year, Freeland said Ottawa was “absolutely” considering following the United States’ lead in banning Chinese automotive software from all vehicles sold in Canada, although that ban had not yet come to fruition.
At the time of Freeland’s comments, David Shipley, CEO of New Brunswick-based cybersecurity company Beauceron Security, called these electric vehicles “rolling spy vans” because of the technology they contain, including microphones and cameras.
That assessment hasn’t changed 18 months later, he told Global News in a new interview.
“What concerns China is that they are motivated to do this,” he said, “and they have the capacity to do so and they have legal infrastructure and requirements for their companies to cooperate with them” under China’s national security laws.
These same authorities are behind the espionage and national security concerns surrounding TikTok, prompting the United States to attempt to ban the popular video-sharing app or cede its U.S. business component to Chinese owner ByteDance.
Still, Shipley said Canada faces a larger problem: Any equivalent electric vehicle or other internet-connected vehicle, regardless of where it is manufactured, has the same vulnerabilities, which Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors can also exploit.
“If they want to spy on a connected car, they’re not just going to spy on their own cars, they’re going to spy on every car connected to the Internet because they’re smart enough, they can figure it out and they absolutely can do it,” he said.
“So it’s short-sighted to focus only on vehicles made in China, because the issues we’re talking about affect all brands. I’m as uncomfortable with Tesla’s ability to listen to me as I am with Beijing.”
In 2021, China banned Tesla vehicles to park or drive near certain government and military complexes due to the same espionage concerns being leveraged against Chinese-made electric vehicles.
Shipley added that he had raised these concerns and the need for regulations to protect the privacy of Canadian drivers’ data with senior federal government officials, but those warnings were not acted upon.
“The response from our leaders has been to focus on all the other crises of the moment,” he said.
“This is one of the biggest failures of Canadian public policy. This is a low-probability, high-impact event. We’re really good at dealing with frequent, low-impact events, but we’re terrible at thinking through the consequences.”
In an interview with the Toronto Star last week, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said the federal government does not share Ford’s concerns about Chinese electric vehicles spying on Canadians.
“I’ll let the premier of Ontario offer his perspective, but from the perspective of the safety and security of Canada and public safety, we have no concerns,” he said.
“All vehicles that enter will have to meet Canadian standards.”
Anandasangaree’s office did not respond to questions from Global News about these comments, including how the government reached this conclusion or changed its position from Freeland’s 2024 remarks.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne told reporters in Ottawa on Monday that it was necessary to engage with China “but with eyes wide open,” and that there would be “guardrails” and reviews of any foreign investment.
He said the goal was to reach agreements that are “beneficial for Canadian consumers, for Canadian industry and taking into account what our other G7 partners are doing around the world.”
Shipley said he has proposed a consumer bill of rights for every vehicle connected 24/7 to the Internet, which would include requiring manufacturers to issue security updates when vulnerabilities are discovered in software and requiring testing to detect new and emerging cyber threats.
Drivers should also be able to disconnect their vehicle from the Internet in the event of a security breach while continuing to drive normally, he added.
“I observed a hack in Las Vegas where someone had figured out how to hack a network of car dealerships and then track individual vehicles, be able to find their location and much more,” he said. “And that creates all sorts of privacy, but also security, risks for people like victims of domestic violence. These are clear.
“We have known for 10 years that we could take control of certain vehicles remotely, via the Internet, and potentially cause life-threatening situations. And we did nothing.”
—With files from Touria Izri of Global News
