{"id":15090,"date":"2026-08-10T12:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/?p=15090"},"modified":"2026-08-10T12:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:01:14","slug":"uks-royal-navy-sea-drones-contain-component-that-secretly-sent-data-to-china-report-claims-government-cuts-camera-connectivity-and-insists-data-wasnt-sensitive-only-hea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/?p=15090","title":{"rendered":"UK’s Royal Navy sea drones contain component that secretly sent data to China, report claims \u2014 government cuts camera connectivity and insists data wasn\u2019t sensitive, only \u2018heartbeat communications\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n Mark Tyson <\/strong>
\n •
\nAugust 10, 2026\n<\/div>\n\n

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K3 Scout surveillance drones used by the UK\u2019s Royal Navy<\/a> contain components that have been secretly transmitting data to China, according to reports. The Telegraph\u2019s<\/em><\/a> revelations suggest that the sea drones include a camera component that would send the data to China. However, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) says that it has removed all internet connectivity from the cameras after discovering the breach. The transmitted data was also limited in scope, insists the MoD, which characterized the transmissions as \u201cheartbeat communications\u201d to simply verify the device is online and working normally.<\/p>\n

Western governments have been seeking to minimize the ingress of Chinese technology into sensitive and critical infrastructure for some years now. The pushback started with investigations into rising telecom brands like Huawei and ZTE<\/a>, which became very successful with their cheap and efficient equipment in the West. <\/p>\n

More recently, we have seen pushback affecting Chinese drone companies<\/a>, as the utility and value of drones have become incredibly clear in the Russia \u2013 Ukraine war<\/a>. Western allies obviously don\u2019t want drones with potential Chinese backdoors, killswitches, or so on inside them. However, even manufacturers in China\u2019s fiercest foe, Taiwan, recently admitted that its drone-making operations were still dependent on Chinese components<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Returning to the topic of drones, specifically, the sea drones in the Telegraph story were reportedly acquired by a major British defense contractor, Kraken Technology Group. The same company \u201csourced the cameras from a third party who had given assurances about their security,\u201d says the newspaper. But an unnamed Telegraph <\/em>source told the paper that this security lapse was a \u201cmajor failure,\u201d meaning that confidence in the platform has been lost. It even goes on to say that there are concerns that these drones could have snooped on highly sensitive special military forces meetings, even when switched off. <\/p>\n

An MoD spokesperson told The Telegraph<\/em> that the issues with the Chinese cameras were identified during a routine cyber vulnerability assessment. That seems like evidence of good practice, showing proactive testing and assurance procedures are in place. Moreover, the investigation \u201cfound no evidence of MoD data or systems being accessed, compromised or transmitted externally.\u201d That didn\u2019t stop The Telegraph or shadow (opposition party) ministers from being \u201cfurious\u201d about the revelations, though.<\/p>\n

The K3 Scout drone can carry a 600kg payload at sea for 30 days continuously. The Royal Marines have been using a \u00a312 million fleet of these drones since March and offered to deploy them to secure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>. <\/p>\n

U.S. Special Operations Command also has K3 Scout drones, and these drones have been used by allies in NATO trials in the Baltic Sea<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/article>\n

Read the full article →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Tyson • August 10, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-hardware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}