China’s hunger for data should set alarm bells ringing
Charles Parton Monday February 20 2023, 12.01am GMT, The Times
A year ago, Europe woke up to a disturbing truth. Its dependency on Russian energy left it dangerously vulnerable to a hostile power. That lesson has not sunk in. Today we continue to sleepwalk into a more dangerous dependency: on Chinese cellular internet-of-things modules (CIMs).
Try asking a minister or civil servant if they know what a CIM is. I have yet to meet one that does. Yet these small components are essential to operations in industry, logistics, defence, security, payment, energy, cars, you name it. And will become more so. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) knows this. That is why it is subsidising and pushing three Chinese companies, Quectel, Fibocom and China Mobile — hardly household names, and they want to keep it that way — towards a monopoly of supply. They already have over half of the global market. Imagine if they achieve a total triopoly of supply. Connected to the internet, CIMs control processes but also send and receive data in order to improve those processes. So not only could the CCP receive buckets of data from, for example, our police body cameras or the prime minister’s car, they could also bring our grid to a standstill by turning oM smart meters, disable alarm systems on military bases, prevent aircraft maintenance and thereby flights, or gum up traOc in London by taking down the traOc light system.
The West’s reckless lack of expertise on China will cost us dear
Or, to be more subtle, don’t take down systems, just erode their performance. You want to make government even less eOcient? Degrade building controls, prevent access or turn oM the heating. Send data to cars to turn themselves oM. ADVERTISEMENT Huawei, meanwhile, was prevented from getting at our 5G masts and base stations. It is now understood to be working with Chinese CIM companies. What if Chinese CIMs get into 5G boxes in our homes and computers? Data can be egressed that way, as potentially it could from your fridge. Which was how some journalists reacted to my recent paper on the threat from CIMs: Chinese Can Spy on Your Fridge. Not quite so funny if, one day, the Chinese bring down the grid through instructions sent to millions of smart meters and stop your fridge working.
What is Whitehall’s reaction? Take the bill on government procurement contracts. The minister charged with steering its passage, Baroness NevilleRolfe, has turned down an amendment to extend its provisions to cover CIMs. Probably she has never heard of them. Chinese cellular modules are the new Russian oil. As the head of the German security service warned: “Russia is the storm. China is climate change.”