Chinese rental cars store data during military exercise in Norway

Espionage risk from connected vehicles

NATO soldiers find sensitive data in Chinese rental cars

Connected cars can collect sensitive information – even where special security precautions apply. An incident during a military exercise in Norway shows why the technology could increasingly become a security risk.

Norwegian soldiers discovered video footage in rented Chinese cars during a military exercise in September. As the business newspaper “Dagens Næringsliv” reports, the stored images showed, among other things, who got in and out of the vehicles, what routes they traveled and where they were. According to the report, the recordings also contained codes used to open gates and doors at military facilities.

The armed forces got the vehicles through the car rental company Hertz Norway rented for the Home Guard. At least two of the cars came from the Chinese manufacturer Deepal, a brand of the state-controlled Changan group. The recordings were deleted from the vehicles after the exercise. It is currently unclear whether data or access codes were previously transmitted to external parties or stored elsewhere.

The incident raises questions about the security of connected vehicles around military installations. According to the user manual, Deepal models can not only record videos from multiple camera perspectives, but also capture and wirelessly transmit driving data such as speed and location. Networked navigation services can also store information about GPS positions, destinations and routes traveled. It is not yet known which functions were active during the exercise and whether sensitive information was transmitted.

The Norwegian authorities were generally aware of the risk of such vehicles. The national security authority had already warned in 2025 about possible surveillance options through cameras, microphones and network connections in modern cars. Defense Minister Tore Onshuus Sandvik told parliament at the end of September that the lease was based on a security assessment. After the report by “Dagens Næringsliv”, MPs demanded further information about what protective measures have been taken and where the military still uses vehicles from Chinese manufacturers.