- Dashcams captured soldiers entering vehicles, moving around, and typing security codes
- Military personnel deleted recordings after discovering them inside the rented cars
- A shortage of alternative vehicles kept the cars in military use
Rental cars used by the Norwegian army during an exercise in Oslo filmed soldiers and stored the recordings inside the vehicles without anyone noticing, reportts have claimed.
The clips showed troops getting into and out of the cars, their movements and locations, and gate codes they typed while facing the camera.
Despite finding the footage, the military kept using the vehicles for the rest of the exercise because it had very few alternative cars available.
Why the recordings alarm people
Public sensitivity about personal data is already high, so any device that silently stores images of people attracts immediate scrutiny.
Soldiers typing access codes within view of a recording lens is a serious breach of routine security, whatever the nationality of the car’s owner.
Gate codes protect restricted areas, so anyone who accessed the clips could have learned how to enter them without authorization.
The cameras were standard dash cams that soldiers had mistakenly left switched on, so recordings accumulated in the cars with nobody reviewing them.
Soldiers found the clips by chance while browsing the vehicle menus because they were bored, and they erased the recordings afterward.
What the evidence shows about China’s role
The entire situation became a more sensitive topic after learning that the rental operator is part of a corporate chain that ends with a company based in China.
The armed forces rent from First Rent A Car Norway AS, a Hertz-branded operator that supplies vehicles for daily errands, exercises and operational missions.
Volvo Cars gained complete control of First Rent A Car Norway AS, but about 79% of Volvo Cars is controlled by Geely’s Swedish holding arm.
Interestingly, that arm of Geely is entirely controlled by China-based Zhejiang Geely Holding Group.
Although the rental firm belongs to Volvo, only two vehicles are confirmed as Chinese-made Deepals, and the brands of the rest are unnamed.
Ownership alone proves nothing about intent, so the question becomes whether Chinese services have the capacity and record to exploit such access in Norway.
Norway’s Police Security Service, the counterintelligence body, says Chinese intelligence and security agencies now possess greater capacity to run operations inside the country.
That concern has a recent case behind it, as police detained a Chinese citizen suspected of aiding espionage, possibly aimed at the Andøya spaceport.
Other governments have acted on similar risks, as Israel’s military barred Chinese-made vehicles from its bases and later withdrew official ones from officers.
Germany’s military took a similar step, restricting phones, tablets and smartwatches for staff handling classified material because of espionage threats from Russia and China.
Yet all these cases involve other incidents and policies, and none connects Geely or the rental firm to the dash cams that recorded the soldiers.
No evidence has emerged that any recording left the cars, which makes a settings lapse by soldiers the more defensible explanation than deliberate spying.
