Xiaomi officially responded to Forbes post
Xiaomi has made an official statement about a recent article in Forbes, where the Chinese manufacturer is accused of total surveillance of users.
Xiaomi is disappointed. The company denies allegations of unlawful surveillance of users
The press service issued the following statement:
Xiaomi was disappointed at a recent Forbes article. The material has a misunderstanding of our position related to the principles of security and protection of personal data. The security of our users’ data and the safety of using the Internet are among the main priorities for Xiaomi. We are convinced that we strictly observe and comply with all requirements of local laws and regulations. We have already turned to Forbes and given our explanations regarding the unfortunate misunderstanding that arose. ”
In its official blog, the company confirms that it collects “general data on usage statistics”, including “system information, preferences, use of user interface functions, memory usage, and crash reports”. Xiaomi emphasizes that this information cannot be used to identify users.
According to the company, URLs are collected to “determine slowly loading pages” in order to improve the overall performance of browsers, and the browsing history is only synchronized with the server when the user logs into the Mi Account and activated the synchronization function in the settings. The company has denied the synchronization of data in the “Incognito” mode.
Among other things, the researchers found that Xiaomi browsers associate with domains that are related to the Chinese startup Sensors Analytics, specializing in behavioral analytics. Xiaomi also emphasizes that although Sensors Analytics provides Xiaomi with a data analysis solution, the collected anonymous data is stored on Xiaomi’s own servers and is not transferred to Sensors Analytics or to any other third-party companies.
Recall that a Forbes article talks about two independent studies by Gabriel Cirlig and Andrew Tierney, who discovered the collection of user data by Xiaomi’s proprietary browsers, in a more “aggressive” manner than Google Chrome and Apple Safari. Researchers say that data is recorded even when the incognito mode is activated. Moreover, Xiaomi also collects data on the smartphone, including unique numbers by which you can determine the device and version of Android. According to Kipling, such information can be easily correlated with a specific person.
