Norway military dash cam privacy: rental cars recorded gate codes

The short version

During Norway's Exercise Hovedstad in September, rented cars stored video of Home Guard soldiers, their routes and military gate codes.
Soldiers found the clips by chance in the car menus and deleted what they could, but nobody knows if copies existed elsewhere.
The cars came from First Rent A Car Norway, a Hertz-branded firm owned by Volvo Cars, which China's Geely group controls.
Norway's armed forces kept using the cars for lack of alternatives and say a ban on cars from specific countries would bring little security gain.

Quick read · 2 min

Rented cars used by Norway's Home Guard during a September exercise near Oslo stored video of soldiers getting in and out, their routes, how long they stopped and even the codes they typed at military gates. Soldiers found the clips while browsing the car menus and deleted what they could.

The cars came from First Rent A Car Norway, a Hertz-branded firm owned by Volvo Cars, which China's Geely group controls. At least two were Chinese-made Deepals. There is no evidence any footage left the cars, and Volvo says no data can go to Geely without a legal basis.

The army kept using the cars because it had too few others.
It says banning cars from specific countries would bring little security gain.
Experts say most connected cars collect this kind of data.

For everyday drivers, the lesson is simple: modern cars record more than most people realize.

A row of soldiers punching codes into a military gate, filmed and saved by the car they were sitting in. That is what Norwegian Home Guard troops found when they scrolled through the menus of their rented vehicles during an exercise near Oslo this autumn, and the discovery has turned a routine rental contract into a national security debate in Norway.

Why should anyone outside Norway care? Because the cars were not spy gadgets. They were ordinary modern rentals with cameras built in, the same kind of connected vehicle millions of people in the US, UK and Canada drive every day. The Norway military dash cam privacy case shows how much a car can quietly record about the people inside it, and how rarely anyone checks.

What the rental cars recorded during Exercise Hovedstad

The cars stored video that showed soldiers getting in and out, who was driving, where they were picked up, which routes they took and how long they stayed at each stop. The drill, called Exercise Hovedstad, took place in September and involved preparing to defend Oslo Airport in wartime.

The most sensitive clips showed troops typing access codes at military gates while facing the camera. Lieutenant Fredrik Blanck, who took part in the exercise, told the Norwegian business paper that first reported the story that some gates are opened with a key card plus a code, and that this step ended up on video.

Blanck also raised a second worry: car microphones could pick up conversations, not just images. He said the soldiers had no way of knowing whether the footage stayed in the car or what happens to it once the exercise ends.

How soldiers found the footage, and what they did next

Nobody was looking for it. Soldiers came across the recordings while clicking through the vehicle settings, reportedly out of boredom, and deleted the clips they could reach.

Accounts differ on how the cameras came to be running. Some reports say the soldiers had left standard dash cams switched on by mistake. Others say the Home Guard never asked for a recording function and was not told the cars had one. At least two of the vehicles were Deepal models, made by China’s state-owned carmaker Changan, and a 360-degree camera is a widely advertised feature across that range. The brands of the other cars have not been named.

Here is the part that surprised many readers in Norway: the army kept using the cars for the rest of the exercise. It had too few other vehicles available.

Who owns the cars: Hertz, Volvo and Geely

The armed forces rent from First Rent A Car Norway AS, which trades under the Hertz name and supplies cars for everyday errands, exercises and operations. The military signed nationwide framework deals with it and a second firm, RAC Norway, in 2024, running from June 2024 through May 2028.

Volvo Cars owns the rental company outright. About 79% of Volvo Cars is controlled by a Swedish holding arm of Geely, and that arm is fully owned by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group in China. That chain of ownership is why the story spread so fast.

Volvo Cars told Norwegian media that Chinese ownership does not create a security risk and that no data can be passed to Geely without a legal basis. Critics point out that Chinese law requires companies to help state intelligence work when asked.

Is this espionage or a settings mistake?

So far there is no proof of spying. No evidence has emerged that any recording ever left the cars, and nothing links Geely or the rental firm to the footage. Several security experts argued the real lesson is about military habits, since almost every connected car now gathers data through cameras, GPS, microphones and other sensors, whoever builds it.

The wider worry is still real. Norway’s own threat assessment for 2026 found that Chinese intelligence and security services have more capacity to operate inside the country, including online and through human sources. Police also detained a Chinese citizen suspected of helping espionage, possibly aimed at the Andøya spaceport.

Other militaries have already moved. Israel’s army barred Chinese-made vehicles from its bases in August 2025 and later began pulling Chinese-made official cars from officers. In April 2026, Germany’s forces limited personal phones, tablets and smartwatches for staff handling classified material, citing espionage threats from Russia and China.

Norway is not going that far. Armed forces spokesperson Caroline E. Lysne said a blanket ban on cars from particular countries would bring limited security gains next to the practical costs for the military, its staff and suppliers. She added that units use physical and electronic safeguards to stop sensitive information being collected. The military declined to answer specific questions about the recordings or the choice to keep driving the cars.

What connected car cameras mean for ordinary drivers

Your rental or company car may be keeping a record of you. The Norwegian case is a military one, but the technology is the same in a family SUV: built-in cameras, location tracking, microphones and an onboard computer that stores what they collect.

Norway’s National Security Authority warned in an earlier risk assessment that a modern car carries more than 200 electronic sensors. Much of that data can be shared with third parties, and recent research found that this is common across brands, not only Chinese ones.

The soldiers’ own experience points to a simple check. The clips were sitting in the car’s menus, visible to anyone who looked. If you drive a shared, leased or rented car with a built-in camera, it is worth looking through the settings before you hand it back, so you know what it has saved about you.

Quick answers

What did the Norwegian army rental cars record?

They stored video of Home Guard soldiers entering and leaving the cars, their routes and stops, and gate codes typed at military sites during a September exercise.

Were the cars Chinese?

At least two were Deepal models made by China’s Changan. The rental firm is owned by Volvo Cars, which China’s Geely group controls; the other brands were not named.

Did the footage reach China?

There is no evidence it left the cars. The soldiers deleted what they found, but they said they could not tell whether copies were stored anywhere else.

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