Smartphone maker Xiaomi engages expert to assess Lithuania claims its handsets contain censorship feature

Xiaomi says it uses advertising software to shield users from certain content such as pornography and references that offend local users
Lithuania cyber agency alleges that the flagship smartphones sold in Europe by Xiaomi have a built-in ability to detect and censor terms such as ‘Free Tibet’

China technology

Reuters

Published: 5:18pm, 27 Sep 2021

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Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp said it is engaging a third-party expert to assess claims from Lithuania’s government that its smartphones carry a censoring feature.

“While we dispute the characterisation of certain findings, we are engaging an independent third-party expert to assess the points raised in the report,” a Xiaomi spokesman said in a statement on Monday.

The announcement comes after Lithuania’s defence ministry urged consumers to throw away Chinese phones last week, following a report published by Lithuania’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) alleging that Xiaomi smartphones have built-in censorship capabilities.

Xiaomi said at the time that its devices “do not censor communications to or from its users”.

Xiaomi did not specify which third-party organisation it was engaging to conduct the assessment. A spokesman told Reuters it was an organisation based in Europe.

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In response to the allegations of censorship, Xiaomi said it uses advertising software to shield users from certain content such as pornography and references that offend local users, a practice it described as standard in the industry.

The company also said with regard to data privacy, it was compliant with ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management Standards and the ISO/IEC 27701 Privacy Information Management System, two frameworks for following Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation.

In its report, Lithuania’s NCSC alleged that flagship phones sold in Europe by Xiaomi have a built-in ability to detect and censor terms such as “Free Tibet”, “Long live Taiwan independence” or “democracy movement”.

The capability in Xiaomi’s Mi 10T 5G smartphone software had been turned off for the “European Union region”, but can be turned on remotely at any time, the report stated.

Xiaomi emerged as the top smartphone vendor in Europe for the first time in the second quarter of 2021, shipping a record 12.7 million units in the continent, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

Xiaomi posts 64 per cent rise in revenue on smartphone, internet sales

The company, along with other Chinese rivals using Google's Android operating system, has enjoyed a surge in market share following the enforcement of US sanctions against Huawei Technologies Co, which crippled its once-dominant smartphone business.

Relations between Lithuania and China have soured. China demanded in August that Lithuania withdraw its ambassador in Beijing and said it would recall its envoy to Vilnius after Taiwan announced that its mission in Lithuania would be called the Taiwanese Representative Office.