Overview
- Dashboard stickers have been placed in hundreds of MoD ‘white fleet’ cars and vans instructing staff not to connect official devices and to avoid conversations above the OFFICIAL classification inside vehicles.
- The Ministry of Defence confirmed the guidance telling personnel not to discuss sensitive information in vehicles, citing standard security measures to protect systems and data.
- Officials say the vehicle guidance was implemented on the advice of the security services and applies to all MoD civilian hire vehicles, not only electric models.
- The latest steps build on actions taken after a 2023 discovery of a Chinese tracking device in a UK government car, including vetting staff for hostile links, advising disconnection of Chinese-made devices from core networks, and banning Chinese EVs from some sensitive sites.
- Recent figures cited for the MoD’s fleet list 745 electric and 1,414 hybrid vehicles, as concerns persist that foreign-made components and software could enable tracking or eavesdropping.