UK Govt Car: Tracking SIM found in sealed part imported from China

"Electronic Control Units (ECUs), which are responsible for the smooth operation of a vehicle’s engine and predominantly sought from China, are embedded with SIM cards before being sent to car manufacturers as sealed units, according to a serving security source.

The manufacturers fit the parts in cars without opening them because of various warranty and commercial agreements, the serving security source said."

And further down the page:

"How SIM cards can be used to track vehicles

SIM cards are commonplace in vehicles, installed by car manufacturers for connectivity purposes, or simply to feed back data on the performance of a car. Most cars will have at least a 2G connection. But intelligence officials warn they have created an increased vulnerability to eavesdropping from hostile states.

Most commercial trackers are essentially SIM cards attached to batteries and every geolocation tracker that sends data via a cellular network requires one. A built-in navigation system in a car with the ability to give live traffic updates will need a SIM card to connect to a signal.

However, the SIMs allegedly embedded in ECUs by Chinese companies are put there without the car manufacturers’ knowledge and appear to give the Chinese suppliers the ability to connect to the car and collect data – including where it has been, how long it has been stopped in a certain place, and even the way in which it has been driven."