Chinese-owned rental cars recorded Norwegian military drill

Rental cars used by Norway’s Home Guard during a large exercise in September recorded video of soldiers, their routes and the codes they typed into military gates, according to a soldier who took part, Norwegian business daily Dagens Næringsliv reported.

The cars were rented by the Norwegian Armed Forces from Hertz in Norway, which belongs to Volvo Cars and, through Volvo, to China’s Geely group. At least two of them were electric cars from Deepal, a brand of Chinese automaker Changan, according to Norwegian media. Soldiers discovered during Exercise Hovedstad, or “Capital,” that the vehicles had a recording function no one had asked for or told them about. The unit kept using the cars for the rest of the exercise because few other vehicles were available.

Lt. Fredrik Blanck, who took part in the exercise, told the newspaper that the stored video showed who got in and out of the cars, where they drove, who they picked up and how long they stayed at different locations. He said the recordings also captured the access codes soldiers entered to open military gates and doors, and that it was unclear whether the data stayed in the car or went anywhere else. Two other unnamed sources confirmed the account to Dagens Næringsliv, and newspaper VG said a separate source told it the recordings were raised during the exercise.

The recordings were deleted from the cars after the exercise, according to Norwegian media, but it is not known whether the data was stored only on the vehicles. Volvo Cars rejected the idea that Chinese ownership poses a security risk and said no data can be shared with Geely without a legal basis. The Norwegian Armed Forces had not publicly explained why the cars were rented or whether it will review the use of such vehicles.

Exercise Hovedstad ran from Sept. 14 to 18 and was the Home Guard’s largest exercise of the year. About 5,000 soldiers from the Oslo and Akershus Home Guard District trained across the capital region, including around the parliament and government buildings. Part of the exercise focused on protecting Oslo Airport, Gardermoen, in wartime. The Home Guard is Norway’s territorial defense force, made up mostly of reservists who guard key infrastructure at home.

Modern cars carry cameras for parking, driver monitoring and dashcam-style recording, along with GPS and internet connections that can send data back to the manufacturer. That has raised concerns about Chinese-made vehicles in several Western countries. In Norway, Oslo’s public transport operator Ruter said last year that tests found the Chinese bus maker Yutong had remote access to the software of electric buses it had supplied, which in theory could allow them to be stopped.

It is not clear whether the Deepal cars were set to record by default, whether the video was ever uploaded, or whether the Norwegian Armed Forces will bar Chinese-owned or Chinese-built vehicles from future exercises.