The United States Defence Security Service (DSS) believes UAV programmes developed by US companies are continuing to be major focal point for “suspicious collection” activities by foreign governments, particularly in regards to unmanned tactical systems and air vehicle avionics.
The service is also warning that at least one East Asian country has been particularly aggressive in its efforts to obtain access to US UAV technologies and programmes over the period 2003-2005. Those collection efforts were all conducted by a single company which supports UAV systems already acquired commercially in a non-classified deal by that nation from an undisclosed US firm.
In its latest report on technology collection trends in the US defence industry, the DSS says that 106 different countries had conducted “suspicious collection” activities targeting US defence contractors during the course of 2005 with those efforts dominated by East Asian countries.
The DSS (formerly the Defense Investigative Service) says it received a total of 971 suspicious activity reports about foreign collection methods from within the US defence industry during the calendar year in question, with 21.8% of these focusing on information system technologies. Laser and optical system capabilities accounted for 10.7% of reports while aeronautics, including UAV systems, came in at third place and accounted for 9.7% of reported incidents.
The most common method of attempted access was via direct request, followed by attempted acquisition and solicitation of marketing services and exploitation of relationships.
The East Asian company cited by the report has a standing commercial relationship with the US company based on software and hardware interfaces for the foreign nation’s existing UAV system ground stations.
The DSS report cites an incident during 2005 during which a “general manager at the East Asia firm requested a visit to the US contractor’s facility to follow up on some warranty repairs for the UAV ground station. Shortly after the request the East Asian firm informed the US contractor that it intended to send two representatives to observe the repair of the equipment. The US contractor had several subsequent contacts with the firm’s management in an attempt to persuade them that the visit was unnecessary and would slow down the repair process due to the security problems that their on-site presence would cause.
“Although the US contractor thought that they had convinced the foreign firm not to send any representatives, within a week two engineers from the foreign firm arrived at the US contractors classified facility. The US contractor refused to allow them access to the classified facility and provided updates to the repair process at their hotel. Both engineers returned to their country without visiting the US facility.”
The report describes the incident as an “aggressive effort” and says the attempted visit “may have been a veiled attempt to collection information on other high interest UAV programmes at the facility. This was the fourth suspicious contact report that the DSS has recorded regarding the East Asian firm’s interest in the US contractor’s UAV platforms since 2003.
“This foreign firms aggressive collection efforts against the US contractor’s UAV technology has occurred in both the United States and in the East Asian nation, and has targeted non-releaseable items including UAV datalinks, take off and landing system technology, communication links, stem design and simulation technology, remote video terminal and portable control systems”.
The DSS has been increasingly emphasising foreign interest in US UAV technologies and capabilities over the past five years. In its 2001 technology collection trends report the service noted a shift was occurring in foreign government data collection priorities from emphasising US manned combat aircraft to UAV systems. That report argued that “this change of interest, per se, is not cause for concern” and said foreign acquisition attempts were expected to be contained by export controls.
The 2001 report cited the example of a country with an existing UAV capability which was attempting to secure access to upgrade technologies from the US. The report said that the country concerned had been the subject of international embargoes since the mid 1980s with this causing a major run down in its own domestic industrial capabilities and ability to effectively sustain the systems in hand. That same country had been involved in talks with a variety of countries about UAV technologies for at least ten years the 2001 report noted, and were likely to continue, potentially becoming “more of a threat to regional US interest and US forces”.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
