The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking prohibiting American companies from importing and selling connected vehicle components with origins from China or Russia.
The draft rule targets hardware and software used in vehicles’ connectivity and automated driving systems, preventing or lowering the chance of possible remote interference from nation state actors. The ban would encompass cars, trucks and buses but exclude agricultural, mining and other vehicles not driven on public roads.
The proposal includes vehicles made in the United States if the connected car’s parts can be traced from the supply chain of Chinese and Russian businesses.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, citing the ease with which malicious entities can access connected vehicles, said her department is actively implementing the targeted measure to prevent technologies that could allow U.S. foreign adversaries to collect data, invade citizens’ privacy and disrupt critical infrastructure.
“Cars today have cameras, microphones, GPS tracking and other technologies connected to the internet,” the official said. “It doesn’t take much imagination to understand how a foreign adversary with access to this information could pose a serious risk to … our national security.”
In May, the Commerce Department said it was considering a similar export ban on proprietary artificial intelligence models for advanced systems, which would likely affect China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.