Lithuania Recommends Its Citizens To Throw Away Chinese Cellphones, This Is The Reason
JAKARTA - The Lithuanian Ministry of Defense recommends that consumers avoid buying Chinese mobile phones and advises citizens who have them to throw them away immediately. This suggestion comes after a government report found that the device had built-in sensor capabilities.
The flagship phones sold in Europe by Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi Corp have the built-in ability to detect and censor terms such as "Free Tibet", "Long live Taiwan independence" or "democracy movement". The censored words and sentences were revealed by Lithuania's state cybersecurity agency on Tuesday, September 21.
According to the National Cyber Security Center of the Ministry of Defense of Lithuania in its report, the software “sensor” capability of the Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G mobile phone has actually been turned off for the “EU region”, but can be turned on remotely at any time,
"Our recommendation is not to buy new Chinese phones, and throw away the ones already purchased as soon as possible," Deputy Defense Minister Margiris Abukevicius told reporters introducing the report. Xiaomi did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Relations between Lithuania and China have deteriorated recently. China last month demanded that Lithuania withdraw its ambassador from Beijing. While China also said it would withdraw its envoy in Vilnius.
This they did after Taiwan announced its diplomatic mission in Lithuania. They will also set up a Taiwan Representative Office. Taiwan's missions in Europe and the United States use the city's name Taipei, avoiding reference to the name of the island itself, which China still claims as its own territory.
US President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, spoke with Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte last week and stressed support for his country in the face of pressure from China.
The National Cyber Center report also says Xiaomi phones send encrypted phone usage data to servers in Singapore. Security flaws were also found in the P40 5G phone by China's Huawei but none were found in the Chinese maker's other phone, OnePlus, he said.
Meanwhile, Huawei's representative in the Baltics told the BNS news agency that the phone does not send user data externally.
The report says the list of terms that can be censored by Xiaomi's phone system apps, including the default internet browser, currently includes 449 terms in Chinese and is constantly being updated.
"This is important not only for Lithuania but for all countries using Xiaomi equipment," a source at the Lithuanian Defense Ministry's National Cyber Security Center said in the report.