{"slug": "michigan-lawmakers-want-to-ban-chinese-tagged-cars-from-even-visiting-the-state", "title": "Michigan Lawmakers Want to Ban Chinese-Tagged Cars from Even Visiting the State", "summary": "Michigan lawmakers, led by Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin and Representative Haley Stevens, proposed the Protecting America From Chinese Cars Act, which would ban Chinese-badged vehicles from even visiting the state, citing national security and privacy concerns. Critics argue the legislation is performative and ignores widespread data collection by U.S. carmakers and the lack of federal privacy laws.", "body_md": "But I sure bet Michigan is getting behind [in-car AI camera surveillance](https://www.motortrend.com/news/ai-camera-occupant-detection-system-replace-seat-sensors-cheaper-cars), so yeah, “privacy”…\n\n# Michigan Lawmakers Want To Ban Chinese-Tagged Vehicles From Even Visiting The State. You Know, For Privacy.\n\n### from the *performative-fixes* dept\n\nMichigan lawmakers are pushing legislation that wouldn’t just ban the sales of Chinese-made cars in the The Great Lakes State, it would [ ban cars with Chinese tags from even visiting](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/06/michigan-politicians-want-to-ban-chinese-badged-cars-from-even-visiting-the-us/#comments). The\n\n[Protecting America From Chinese Cars Act](https://www.slotkin.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Protecting-America-from-Chinese-Cars-Act_One-Pager.pdf)joins the\n\n[Connected Vehicle Security Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connected_Vehicle_Security_Act)aiming to protect U.S. car companies from cheaper Chinese EV competition in an election season where every campaign contribution dollar matters.\n\nThis new legislation is required, we’re told by Michigan Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin and Rep. Haley Stevens, because the country [simply cares that much about jobs, consumer privacy, and national security](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/06/michigan-politicians-want-to-ban-chinese-badged-cars-from-even-visiting-the-us/#comments):\n\n“We’re gonna be aggressive here because Michigan jobs are on the line, but also so is national security. So close our border to Chinese vehicles and Chinese technology in the vehicles, even for day trips. That’s how aggressive we believe we need to be right now,” Stevens said while speaking at a policy conference.\n\nHer partner in the legislation went much further. “They can certainly come across the border, drive up to Selfridge Air Force base, take some video with the car. The car is a traveling surveillance package. And all of that data that the car is collecting is being sent straight back to Beijing,” Slotkin said.”\n\nSo, a few things. One, it’s curious how normally very vocal “free market” Libertarian groups always mysteriously get quiet when this sort of obvious anti-competitive pandering to large corporate campaign donors pops up. Two, it’s adorable how Slotkin and Stevens want you to believe that simply banning Chinese cars somehow solves the major privacy issues inherent with modern, connected cars.\n\nFor one, U.S. and most of the overseas vehicles sold in the U.S. basically have [nonexistent security standards](https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/13/auto-makers-are-selling-data-on-your-driving-habits-to-your-insurer-without-properly-informing-you/). Carmakers collect an ocean of biometric, location and phone data, and then sell that data to a parade of largely unregulated data brokers, who in turn sell access to that data to any random asshole with money to spend — including domestic and foreign intelligence.\n\nThey then *lie about it when asked*. And if they do openly acknowledge it, they insist it’s okay because the resulting data has been “anonymized” (a [term that means absolutely nothing](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/debunking-myth-anonymous-data)).\n\nWhich is to say the Chinese, if they really want access to detailed U.S. street information and public movement data, *don’t need to sell their cars in the U.S. to obtain it*. Because Congress has been too corrupt to pass a meaningful internet-era privacy law any time in the last quarter century. In part because we’re greedy, but also in part because the U.S. government also buys this data [to avoid getting warrants](https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/27/fbi-tells-senate-its-still-bypassing-4th-amendment-by-purchasing-location-data-from-third-parties/).\n\nAs a result of this country’s grotesque corruption, we’ve been awash in [major](https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/15/wyden-data-broker-used-abortion-clinic-visitor-location-data-to-help-send-targeted-misinformation-to-vulnerable-women/) privacy and national security scandals for [25 years](https://www.eff.org/cases/geolocation-privacy), including the recent revelation that sensitive U.S. location data obtained by telecoms, apps, and every other device we use (whether it’s made in China or not) is being bought from data brokers by other countries and then utilized to [track, target, and kill U.S. troops](https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/28/enemies-are-exploiting-unregulated-data-broker-location-data-to-target-and-kill-u-s-troops/).\n\nSo maybe Stevens and Slotkin actually care about this stuff, but generally privacy is used as a lazy talking point by politicians who have other motivations; in this case making giant U.S. carmakers who don’t want to face meaningful price competition happy ahead of the midterms to ensure the campaign financing funding keeps flowing.\n\nSlotkin was one of numerous Dems who supported the “banning of TikTok,” which really just involved [offloading most of the app and its profits to Trump’s billionaire friends](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/19/tiktok-deal-done-and-its-somehow-the-shittiest-possible-outcome-making-everything-worse/), who are as bad, if not worse, on issues like privacy and propaganda than ByteDance ever was. Now Slotkin is going around calling cheaper Chinese EVs “[TikTok on wheels](https://michiganadvance.com/2026/05/07/slotkin-calls-chinese-made-vehicles-tiktok-on-wheels-as-she-rolls-out-new-legislation-to-ban-them/),” as if the whole Dem TikTok face plant never happened.\n\nPretending you’re being extra tough on privacy by going so far as to even ban cars with Chinese tags from visiting from Canada (as if Canadians *want* to visit the U.S. right now anyway) is particularly weird, performative, and ignores the real problem.\n\nU.S. politicians need to pass a meaningful internet-era privacy law and tightly regulate data brokers, or shut up about how much they care about consumer privacy and national security.\n\nFiled Under: [anti-competition](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/anti-competition/), [cars](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/cars/), [china](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/china/), [chinese](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/chinese/), [competition](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/competition/), [elissa slotkin](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/elissa-slotkin/), [EVs](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/evs/), [free market](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/free-market/), [haley stevens](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/haley-stevens/), [privacy](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/privacy/), [protecting america from chinese cars act](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/protecting-america-from-chinese-cars-act/), [security](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/security/), [vehicles](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/vehicles/), [warrants](https://www.techdirt.com/tag/warrants/)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/michigan-lawmakers-want-to-ban-chinese-tagged-cars-from-even-visiting-the-state", "canonical_source": "https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/12/michigan-lawmakers-want-to-ban-chinese-tagged-vehicles-from-even-visiting-the-state-you-know-for-privacy/", "published_at": "2026-06-13 19:44:33+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-13 20:17:13.002132+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["autonomous-vehicles", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Elissa Slotkin", "Haley Stevens", "Michigan", "Protecting America From Chinese Cars Act", "Connected Vehicle Security Act", "Selfridge Air Force Base", "Beijing"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/michigan-lawmakers-want-to-ban-chinese-tagged-cars-from-even-visiting-the-state", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/michigan-lawmakers-want-to-ban-chinese-tagged-cars-from-even-visiting-the-state.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/michigan-lawmakers-want-to-ban-chinese-tagged-cars-from-even-visiting-the-state.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/michigan-lawmakers-want-to-ban-chinese-tagged-cars-from-even-visiting-the-state.jsonld"}}