Last week, it was reported that the Lithuanian Defense Ministry had advised users of Xiaomi smartphones in that country to throw away their devices due to unauthorized censorship concerns. Xiaomi has immediately responded with a statement that it has never and will never restrict or block any user behavior. The statement also added that Xiaomi fully respects and protects the rights of all users of its devices.
Lithuania’s state-run cyber security watchdog, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) had claimed that some Xiaomi flagship smartphones have a built-in ability to detect and censor certain searches relating to issues that may run foul to the official position of the Chinese government. The body noted that the feature had actually been turned off in the European region by Xiaomi, but in fact, still exists.
Xiaomi, in obvious response to the implications of the claim by the Lithuanian government, has now hired an expert to assess the allegation that its smartphones have in-built censorship capabilities. Xiaomi may be caught in the crossfire of recent frosty exchanges between Beijing and Vilnius. Some of the issues related to Lithuania’s seeming recognition of Taiwan. This led to Beijing calling for the withdrawal of the Lithuanian Ambassador to China, while also initiating the recall of its envoy to Lithuania in August.
In a statement, Xiaomi says it disputes the characterization of certain findings in the Lithuanian case, it is engaging an independent third-party expert to assess the points raised in the NCSC report. Although the Xiaomi spokesperson did not disclose the identity of the expert it will be engaging, it is believed that this will be a European organization with sufficient clout and expertise. Xiaomi had also said that its standard approach had been to some advertising applications to shield users from extreme content like pornography and references that may offend local users.
The current claims by Xiaomi are viewed by the Lithuanian Defense Ministry as an admittance that the company indeed has a blacklist of items within its content filtering architecture. They are insisting that this list is politically motivated, possibly in line with official positions from Beijing. Xiaomi, however, continues to insist that it is compliant with the extant regulations of data privacy applicable in the EU.
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