By Herman Lai, posted Jun 16, 2011 at 3:50 PM, 969 views,

Chinese Government Accused of Bugging Thousands of Cars Traveling Between Hong Kong and China

Bugging thousands of vehicles traveling between Hong Kong and China sounds like a ridiculous thing to us, but perhaps this is real. According to Hong Kong media Apple Daily, the Shenzhen Inspection and Quarantine Bureau began installing “inspection and quarantine cards” free of charge in vehicles in July 2007, but the fact is that they have been installing eavesdropping devices in your car. Are you serious? No kidding, guys. But the authorities had denied to the accuse. Full story after the break, and an animation illustrating the mystery.

The spying device was installed as “inspection and quarantine cards” by the Chinese government, which began back in July 2007. It is not very big, just the same size as a PDA, and it was being tapped onto the front windows inside the car. The purpose of it is for easy access the checkpoint between China-Hong Kong. That’s why no one would notice their car had been secretly installed with such recorder.

The device was wrapped with protective tape, presumably to prevent tampering. But it did not stop the Apple Daily reporter to remove it and bring to experts for inspection. The experts claimed this is a private investigator of over 30 years. The internal component can be definitely used for eavesdropping. Signal receiving range is up to 20 km, meaning that the device installer could listen even when the vehicles are in Hong Kong. Two of the regions in Hong Kong where the device can transmit data back to China are Sha tin and Tuen Mun.

The experts also claimed the chips are good enough for simple border crossings while checking cars’ inspection status, but also sufficient for voice recording and transmission. Therefore, they think it is “very likely” being used for surveillance.

In addition, the suspicions were raised after smugglers noticed authorities were intercepting their shipments with uncanny regularity. They said:

“In order to play safe, only three to four out of every ten cars we ran were filled with the smuggled goods, but the border agents caught all of them. The accuracy was unreal!”

Looking at the deep research done by Apple Daily, maybe we should believe the Chinese government is spying on us, and they had already violated the privacy law. This is extremely serious, since the people who could get the China-Hong Kong dual-plate are usually rich and most of them are businessmen. Their conservations may contain company-secrets. If the recorded conservation is leaked or shared to the public, everything confidential will be exposed.

If the government has the intention to spy on us, they may have another spying device installed at somewhere else. Where would it be? Would it be installed at our home? The clock? Sofa?

Source: AppleDaily, Next Media Animation via Gizmodo