Cybersecurity specialist Gabi Cirlig claims that his Xiaomi smartphone sends data to external servers. The expert investigated and explains that these servers are rented by the manufacturer of telephones to the Chinese giant Alibaba. In Forbes , he ironically describes his Redmi Note 8 as a “backdoor that also serves as a telephone”.
The "incognito" mode would be ineffective
According to him, the browser installed by default on Xiaomi smartphones records the websites visited. The research carried out, the files opened or the notifications received are also part of the information kept. The researcher specifies that the use of the secure search engine DuckDuckGo or the "incognito" mode proposed by Xiaomi did not prevent espionage.
Another expert, Andrew Tierney, was commissioned by Forbes to study the matter in turn. He discovered that Mi Browser Pro and Mint Browser, the browsers offered on Google Play by Xiaomi, actually record this data. These two programs have been downloaded more than 15 million times according to Google statistics.
Xiaomi denies the accusations
Gabi Cirlig has serious doubts about the protection of his personal data and his privacy. He also believes that the phone model he owns is not the only one of the Chinese brand to send data to the servers.
The world number four in the smartphone sector initially refuted all these allegations. A spokesperson for the company admitted that the navigation information was well collected but that the users had authorized it and that the "incognito" mode prevented the operation. "The claims of these surveys are unfounded," replied the Chinese giant, who said "to scrupulously follow and fully comply with local laws and regulations on the confidentiality of information related to users."
Faced with controversy, the manufacturer has just launched an update of its web browsers to allow users to prevent the collection of data in private browsing, says Frandroid . An initiative in the form of a confession, according to experts.
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