Things had been going so well for
rising Chinese technology star Xiaomi. The smartphone maker recently produced another
blockbuster quarter, in part helped
by the retreat of Huawei in the face of US-led sanctions. It has also been rising high in smartphone OEM rankings. Furthermore, in May Xiaomi
managed to achieve a rare victory
by persuading the US government
to set aside a Trump administration
blacklisting that could have
restricted American investment in the manufacturer.

Lithuania's Defense Ministry now
appears to have thrown a spanner
in the works. According to BBC News and other news outlets, the ministry has advised consumers to
throw away their Chinese phones
and avoid buying new ones
following a damning report from the
nation's National Cyber Security
Center. Just say no The center conducted a security
investigation of three 5G
smartphones from Chinese
manufacturers that are sold in
Lithuania: the Huawei P40 5G,
Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G and OnePlus 8T 5G 5G smartphones. Its report claimed that the Xiaomi phone had built-in censorship tools
while the Huawei model had
security flaws. No cyber security
vulnerabilities were identified in the
OnePlus device. For example, Xiaomi's Mi 10T 5G
smartphone was found to have
software that could detect and
censor terms including "Free
Tibet," "Long live Taiwan
independence" or "democracy movement." The censoring
capability in the software has been
turned off for the "European Union
region," but can be turned on
remotely at any time, the report
found. Margiris Abukevičius, Deputy
Defense Minister, said: "Our
recommendation is to not buy new
Chinese phones, and to get rid of
those already purchased as fast as
reasonably possible," BBC News reported. Abukevicius also told Reuters that
the ministry has shared its report
with cyber security officials from
other European Union nations and
the United States on Wednesday.

Xiaomi has robustly defended itself, telling Reuters that its device "does not censor communications to or
from its users." "Xiaomi has never and will never
restrict or block any personal
behaviours of our smartphone
users, such as searching, calling,
web browsing or the use of third-
party communication software," the statement said.

sauce :https://www.lightreading.com/security/xiaomi-denies-censoring-as-lithuania-advises-ditching-phones/d/d-id/772279