Ford warns Chinese EVs could be ‘spy cars,’ experts cite cybersecurity risks

Premier Ford is doubling down on his concern that any Chinese-made electric vehicles headed for Canada will be “spy cars.”

Cybersecurity experts say it is very possible that data collected by these cars will end up in the hands of the Chinese government.

But some also point out that Canada has already allowed many Chinese-built devices into our market, with the same threat, and reversing course on that would mean forgoing many modern technologies.

“When you get on your cell phone it’s the Chinese that are going to be listening to your, and I’m not making this stuff up, they’re going to be listening to your telephone conversation,” says Premier Ford during his Monday morning speech to the Rural Ontario Municipal Association, and then again to reporters at Queen’s Park.

“We know when you hook up your phone, they’re gonna be listening, simple as that.”

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Doug Ford believes the 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles the Prime Minister is allowing to come to Canada are so-called “spy cars” – recording a variety of vehicle and driver data that the Chinese government could access.

“I’m concerned about cybersecurity and the threat of China,” says Ford.

“Those concerns are very legitimate,” says Cybersecurity Expert Ritesh Kotak.

Kotek agrees the cars pose a threat and in a worst-case scenario there are concerns they could be hacked and controlled remotely.

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“We’ve seen demonstrations at different hacking events where individuals have demonstrated how autonomous technology could essentially be weaponized,” says Kotak.

But perhaps the more concerning day-to-day threat comes from the information the vehicles record – either from the vehicle computer or from connected devices like a cell phone.

Kotak says things like your location, the number of passengers, your GPS route, the audio from a phone call, or even images or video from cameras could be sent overseas.

Unlike in Canada or the U.S., none of that information is protected under Chinese law.

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“The Chinese government can essentially compel an organization to turn over any information,” says Kotak.

“Chinese vehicles on Canadian roads introduce additional layers of data security concerns and privacy concerns,” says Carmi Levi, a cybersecurity expert.

Levi also agrees the vehicles pose a threat – pointing out similar security concerns in 2022 led the federal government to ban Chinese tech giant Huawei from working on Canada’s 5G network.

“That having been said, our entire technological environment is largely built on devices that do have some kind of origin story related to China,” says Levi.

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Things like your phone – which Canadians are already using.

“We’re already subject to Chinese surveillance on all sorts of other devices that we use without even thinking about every single day,” says Levi.

While there were already Chinese electric vehicles brought to Canada, before the tariff rate was increased to 100 per cent in 2024, Ritesh Kotak says the threat is now greater.

“There is something fundamentally different now and that is just how rapidly technology has evolved,” says Kotak.

Doug Ford also said repeatedly today that he doesn’t believe China will ever build any vehicle manufacturing facilities in Canada – something Mark Carney says will happen as a result of the EV-for-tariff-reductions deal.

Ford says any such facility would have to build hundreds of thousands of vehicles and export most of them to customers in the U.S., but the premier says he doesn’t believe the U.S. will allow so-called “spy cars” in their market.

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