After accusations that Xiaomi collects user data surfaced on 30th April 2020, the Chinese smartphone company has released an official response to address the matter.
A cybersecurity researcher, Gabi Cirlig, had made the revelation that Xiaomi harvested people’s data. Cirlig mentioned that Xiaomi collects most of this data when a user uses its default browser.
He even went as far as saying that the company ignored the ‘Incognito Mode’ feature as well. In addition, every website and webpage a Xiaomi use visits are saved. This is regardless of whether the person uses Google or DuckDuckGo.
This could spell doom for the company which has been on a steady rise in the market lately. Usually, hearing ‘data collection’ and ‘China’ in the same sentence is a red flag.
However, to make matters worse, Gabi Craig had added that all data was aggregated and sent to remote servers in Singapore and Russia. This, despite that they are Beijing-registered web domains.
Also read:
– Learn Coding For Free During COVID-19 Lockdown With JetBrains Academy
– PerSwaysion Hack Campaign: More Than 150 Top Company Executives Victims Of Email Phishing Attacks
– Zoom Lied About Having 300 Million Active Users, Now It’s Backtracked
A Forbes cybersecurity researcher Andrew Tierney also confirmed these findings. It is not a problem affecting just Xiaomi Note 8 which Gabi Craig had tested. The researchers had also tested Xiaomi MI 10, Xiaomi Redmi K20, and Xiaomi Mi MIX 3.
In response, the smartphone maker had said:
“Xiaomi was disappointed to read the recent article from Forbes. We feel they have misunderstood what we communicated regarding our data privacy principles and policy.
“Our user’s privacy and internet security is of top priority at Xiaomi; we are confident that we strictly follow and are fully compliant with local laws and regulations. We have reached out to Forbes to offer clarity on this unfortunate misinterpretation.”
What Xiaomi means by its response to user data collection as explained by CNet is that; it collects aggregated usage statistics on things like responsiveness and performance.
It explained that this does not lead back to a phone owner. Adding that it only syncs web browsing history if a user turns on the feature in their settings.
Xiaomi did not, however, address the issue of collecting data while one used the incognito mode. Nor, did it clear the air regarding Forbes’ report that Cirlig had been able to decode the encrypted data and read it in little time.
In 2019, Xiaomi had been the fourth-best selling smartphone company in the world. Will this privacy issue affect its sales for the rest of 2020?
For your daily dose of tech, lifestyle and trending content, make sure to follow Plat4om on Twitter @Plat4omLive, on Instagram @Plat4om, on LinkedIn at Plat4om, and on Facebook at Plat4om. You can also email us at info@plat4om.com. Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel HERE.
