Tesla unveils Shanghai data centre to meet Chinese cybersecurity requirements

Following a backlash, Tesla on May 25 announced that it has set up a data centre in mainland China to store the information collected from users. According to South China Morning Post (SCMP), Chinese authorities in March had restricted the use of Tesla cars by the military and employees of state-owned companies over concerns that images from cameras on the vehicles could be transmitted to the US. The American electric vehicle (EV) company had, however, denied that its vehicles could be used for espionage. 

But after coming under Chinese pressure, Tesla in a Weibo post said that it has set up a data centre in Shanghai to locally store data collected by its vehicles sold in mainland China. The US-based firm said that all data generated from cars sold in China will now be stored within the country. Tesla even added that it will add more data centres in future and further promised to take care of the security of the data. 

It is worth noting that China requires foreign companies to store user data on its soil since 2017 when its Cybersecurity Law came into effect. Tesla has now pledged to cooperate with Chinese authorities. Apart from Tesla, Apple Inc. also hosts the iCloud accounts of its Chinese users in a new data centre in China’s southwestern Guizhou province. 

China’s privacy and security measures 

According to SCMP, Yale Zhang, managing director of Automotive Foresight, an industry researcher in Shanghai, said that handling of data is a serious issue facing the world’s leading technology firms that operate in China. Zhang said that a strengthened regulatory framework governing data collected by EV companies had resulted from not only the government’s national security concerns but also from the point of view of safeguarding consumer interests. The bad publicity of Tesla from the official concerns and a customer’s high-profile protests at the Shanghai Auto Show was a cause of concern in the market, where manufacturers cannot afford to trip up given the increasing competition.

Meanwhile, Beijing has of late become increasingly cognisant about data privacy and security and has rolled out a slew of measures to regulate data generated by EVs. The Cyberspace Administration of China proposed a series of draft rules on May 12 titled the Provisions on the Management of Automobile Data Security. This followed the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s draft regulations unveiled last month, which stipulate that personal information and important data collected and generated during operations within the country must stay within Chinese territory, with a particular reference to smart EV makers such as Tesla.

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