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Chinese self-driving cars have quietly traveled 1.8 million miles on U.S. roads, collecting detailed data with cameras and lasers
A Fortune investigation has found that U.S. state and federal officials do not currently monitor, or have any process for checking, exactly what data Chinese self-driving cars are collecting and what happens to the data after it is collected.
The potential for such mischief was demonstrated back in 2010 when Googleacknowledged that its manually-driven “Street View” mapping cars had for years hoovered up private user data, including entire email communications and passwords, shared over unsecured Wi-Fi networks by residents in more than 30 countries (Google blamed the incident on a rogue employee). The number of miles that Chinese-owned autonomous vehicles have traveled in California since 2017 At a time when U.S. fears of espionage have fueled high-profile efforts to ban China-owned firms like TikTok and telecommunications equipment maker Huawei, the Chinese self-driving cars roaming American roads represent a little-noticed loophole that highlights the countless apertures for surveillance in today’s tech-permeated landscape and the challenge of mitigating all the risks. The 3D maps and videos make it possible for the robo-cars to navigate streets and highways as if by magic, but the richness and level of detail means the data could be valuable for other potential users, including adversary countries seeking a competitive advantage in the case of war, said Nadia Schadlow, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy under the Trump Administration and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.
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