The computer on four wheels in your driveway has become the newest front in the fight over Chinese espionage. Modern vehicles collect location history, driving patterns, voice recordings, and phone contacts, and much of that data can leave the car through software and hardware built overseas. Now a bipartisan group in Congress wants to cut foreign adversaries out of the connected vehicle supply chain entirely.

The push follows reporting that Chinese-made components have turned up in unlikely places, from baby monitors in American homes to drones flown by the British military. The legislation would extend restrictions already placed on connected vehicles and apply them to the software and hardware inside them.

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From Just the News:

Next, it’s your toaster: New legislation aims 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.”

“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.”

“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.

The bill is the Connected Vehicle Security Act. Rep. Warren Davidson, an Ohio Republican, is a cosponsor in the House, and Sen. Bernie Moreno, also of Ohio, introduced the Senate companion. Support crosses party lines, including from Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. The United Autoworkers Union has endorsed it; the union reports roughly 392,447 active members and more than 580,000 retirees. The American Enterprise Institute has noted that Chinese growth in the connected vehicle industry has widened its access to foreign data, including behavioral, geographic, and infrastructure information.

The security concerns are not theoretical. The Wall Street Journal reported that Britain’s Ministry of Defense discovered a component inside its military drones was secretly transmitting data back to China. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has sued Lorex, a maker of baby monitors and home cameras, accusing it of concealing material ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese military and leaving its devices vulnerable to spying. Lorex disputes the allegations and has fought similar actions. Former Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf wrote in a Fox News op-ed that embedding data-gathering technology in consumer products sits at the heart of Beijing’s strategy, which he said pairs intellectual property theft and cyberespionage with industrial policy meant to make the West dependent on Chinese supply chains. Davidson has also argued that China’s conduct undercuts the commitments it made when it joined global trade markets, saying no one treats China as a market economy because it sells below cost and strategically wrecks entire sectors of other countries’ economies.

Intercessors should care because the private spaces of an American family, a kitchen, a nursery, a car, a quiet conversation, are exactly what Scripture treats as sacred ground, and a device that watches and reports turns that ground over to someone else. Pray that Congress finishes this work rather than letting a rare bipartisan agreement die in committee. Pray for protections that reach beyond cars into every connected device in the home and for American manufacturers to rebuild the capacity to make these goods here. We pray for accountability to this industry, for discernment among consumers about what they bring into their houses, and for courage among leaders to name the threat plainly without fear of offending trade partners.

Let’s pray for vigilance over our homes, honesty in our commerce, and leaders who will put American families and American sovereignty ahead of foreign profit.

How are you praying about this issue? Share your prayers and scriptures in the comments below.

(Excerpt from Just the News. Photo Credit: Codrut Evelina’s Images via Canva).