Evidence that Chinese-made baby monitors and components used in British military drones can be turned into spy devices has prodded Congress to act in a bipartisan fashion to protect another private space: Americans’ automobiles.

Republicans and Democrats in both the Senate and House have joined together to develop legislation banning Chinese-made cars and electronic components and software made by foreign adversaries like China from being included in cars sold in America. It’s a rare bipartisan initiative in a Washington that normally is deeply divided by politics.

The American Enterprise Institute speculated that "Chinese growth in the connected vehicle industry has expanded its access to foreign data. Automakers could gain streams of behavioral, geographic, and infrastructural data."

“First and foremost, no one should spy on you in your car. You should be able to control every signal coming in or going out of your car,” Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, a co-sponsor of the House legislation, told Just the News. “The data that you're creating in it is really your data. You should have a property right in that. We're a long ways off from being able to get full control of that.”

“In the meantime, I think, hopefully, we can at least agree China shouldn't be able to do that,” he added during a wide-ranging interview on the Just the News, No Noise television show.”

Winning support from all over the political spectrum

The bill Davidson has cosponsored is called the Connected Vehicle Security Act, and it has a companion in the Senate introduced by his home state Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio. The legislation has attracted support from all political spectrums, including liberal senators like Elissa Slotkin, 

The legislation has also won support from the powerful United Autoworkers Union (UAW). The UAW has approximately 392,447 active members, along with over 580,000 retired members, its website says.

“Our national and economic security relies on a strong US auto industry,” UAW President Shawn Fain said when the legislation was unveiled. “The American Dream was launched and sustained out of good union auto jobs here in the United States. If we want to rebuild US manufacturing and raise standards for the working class, we can’t keep offshoring and outsourcing our auto industry, driving a global race to the bottom for short-term corporate profits, he said.

“By building on and strengthening the existing connected vehicles rule, this legislation puts common sense guardrails on a major threat to our nation’s auto industry,” he added. 

The Moreno version of the legislation states plainly the new restrictions, which would impact everything from GPS systems in cars to entertainment devices and any Chinese-made vehicles, like those flooding Europe.  

Security issue goes global

The bill’s goal is to” prohibit the importation, manufacture, sale, resale, or introduction into interstate commerce in the United States of connected vehicles and related software and hardware associated with foreign adversaries.”

The move in Congress comes as the breadth of China’s efforts to use technology in products as spying tools has become more clear. The Wall Street Journal reported that Britain’s Ministry of Defense recently revealed that a component in its military drones was secretly transmitting data back to China.

Likewise, Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has sued Lorex, a leading manufacturer of baby monitors and home cameras, accusing it of “concealing material ties to the CCP and Chinese military” and potentially making its devices vulnerable to spying on Americans. Lorex disputes the allegations, and according to Courthouse News, has fought back on similar actions.  

Former Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said embedding data-gathering technology in products is at the heart of China’s foreign espionage strategy.

"China having access to your information is problematic for a host of reasons," Wolf writes

“To be clear, this is part of Beijing’s playbook,” Wolf wrote in a recent Fox News OpEd. “It uses intellectual-property theft, cyberespionage and industrial policy to become indispensable to Western supply chains and then exploits that access to collect intelligence and create vulnerabilities it can use against its adversaries.”

Davidson said China’s behavior undercuts its commitments when it joined the global trade markets.

Davidson said that China having access to your information is problematic for a host of reasons, and frankly, China having access to our automotive market is a big deal because China agreed to be a market economy in exchange for being part of the World Trade Organization.”

“No one recognizes them as a market economy because they're not. They sell things below cost. It's not that they have a competitive advantage in China, which they do in some respects, but their government decides they want an industry, and they buy up the market by selling into that market below what anybody else can produce at, and they very strategically wreck whole sectors of our economy," he added.