Norwegian Army Rental Cars Stored Dashcam Footage of Soldiers, Report Says

The cameras were standard dash cams that soldiers had mistakenly left switched on, so recordings accumulated in the cars without anyone reviewing them, according to the report. The footage was found when soldiers were browsing the menus out of boredom and was erased afterward. A shortage of alternative vehicles kept the cars in military use.

The vehicles were rented 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, which is entirely controlled by China-based Zhejiang Geely Holding Group. Only two vehicles are confirmed as Chinese-made Deepals, and the brands of the rest are unnamed.

Norway's Police Security Service, the counterintelligence body, says Chinese intelligence and security agencies now possess greater capacity to run operations inside the country. Police detained a Chinese citizen suspected of aiding espionage, possibly aimed at the Andøya spaceport. Other governments have acted on similar risks: Israel's military barred Chinese-made vehicles from its bases and later withdrew official ones from officers, while Germany's military restricted phones, tablets and smartwatches for staff handling classified material because of espionage threats from Russia and China.

None of those cases connects Geely or the rental firm to the dash cams that recorded the soldiers, according to the report. Ownership alone proves nothing about intent, and the question is whether Chinese services have the capacity and record to exploit such access in Norway. No evidence has emerged that any recording left the cars, which makes a settings lapse by soldiers a more defensible explanation than deliberate spying, TechRadar reported.

Editor's Summary

The episode involved rental cars used by the Norwegian army in Oslo storing dashcam footage of soldiers, movements and gate codes before troops deleted the recordings. The rental operator sits within a corporate chain linked to China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, but no evidence connects that ownership to the recordings or shows that any footage left the vehicles. The report highlights security concerns around vehicle cameras while leaving a soldier settings lapse as the more defensible explanation.