Xiaomi has taken the worldwide mobile market with a storm as they have so much to offer in a decently priced smartphone. One feature which the company was offering is now under scanner as it has been found that Xiaomi stores its user’s data on it servers.

It was found that important information including IMEI number, telco name, IMSI number and sensitive information like the phone numbers in contact list as well as of those who have sent or received a message using Xiaomi cloud services are been stored on a server named api.account.xiaomi.com

Xiaomi has no doubt provided a service like the iCloud but what about this information which is being stored on their servers? This can be considered as a breach of privacy policy.

Mr. Hugo Barra, vice president of international operations explained that IMEI number, IMSI number and the phone number is required to send and receive messages through the MiCloud. He stated that phonebook contacts of a user are never stored on our servers and the encrypted messages are also not stored for a time longer than required.

Mr. Hugo further said that we will do all that is required to protect the privacy of our users. Xiaomi has now scheduled an OTA system update to implement some changes where a user will be given the cloud messaging app as an optional service. Earlier, users had to activate the cloud messaging app while activating their phone.

This shows that Xiaomi cares for its users and their privacy concerns. We can be sure that Xiaomi is here to stay as this is just the beginning.

The post Xiaomi faces security concerns over its cloud messaging system appeared first on Gizmochina.

The fastly growing Chinese Company Xiaomi will make the cloud messaging service an opt-in service instead of automatic one. This step was taken after concerns were raised about security and privacy. The MIUI Cloud Messaging is similar to the Apple iMessage service. The service takes the messaging data through internet which makes it free. The data travels to the MIUI servers. It was revealed that the user data is shared with the servers in China. The user data that is shared with the servers include the phone contacts, phone numbers, IMEI numbers and SMS messages. The sharing of this critical data raised concerns about the privacy and security of user data. The situation worsened as the users don’t have opt-out option. The situation seems to change after these developments.

Recently, the Global Vice President of Xiaomi, Hugo Barra addressed to the rumors and conspiracies about data sharing. Xiaomi has given option to the users to opt out the service. Hugo Barra said the MIUI Cloud Messaging service doesn’t store any information about customers’ phone or social graph. He added that the data is encrypted and it is kept only for the time the message is delivered to the receiver.  Facebook Status of Barra stated that it is the company’s foremost priority to keep the user data safe and secure. The company doesn’t store private information without users permission.

Before this, the MIUI Cloud Messaging service was activated automatically for all Xiomi users, the moment they would insert the SIM in their Xiaomi phones. After the privacy concerns the service has been made optional to protect the user data. The update will be implemented from today. The update will incorporate the security layer that will encrypt the phone numbers when they will be transferred to the Cloud Messaging servers.

The post The Xiaomi Global Vice President, Hugo Barra, clarifies privacy concerns, explaining how Mi Cloud uses User Data appeared first on Gizmochina.