Warning Over Chinese Mobile Giant Xiaomi Recording Millions Of People’s ‘Private’ Web And Phone Use

Warning Over Chinese Mobile Giant Xiaomi Recording Millions Of People’s ‘Private’ Web And Phone Use

“It’s a backdoor with phone functionality,” quips Gabi Cirlig about his new Xiaomi phone. He’s only half-joking.

Cirlig is speaking with Forbes after discovering that his Redmi Note 8 smartphone was watching much of what he was doing on the phone. That data was then being sent to remote servers hosted by another Chinese tech giant, Alibaba, which were ostensibly rented by Xiaomi.

The seasoned cybersecurity researcher found a worrying amount of his behavior was being tracked, whilst various kinds of device data were also being harvested, leaving Cirlig spooked that his identity and his private life was being exposed to the Chinese company.

*www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewste...xi_OvEJoeNDDvjYVMEP3_eqfc4l4hEBQ#249cb0821b2a

This is one of the reasons why I flash a custom rom as soon as I get a new phone.

SaiyanGoku said:
This is one of the reasons why I flash a custom rom as soon as I get a new phone.

what is the reason, customs roms would not be bloated with spywares?

icebags said:
what is the reason, customs roms would not be bloated with spywares?

Yes, exactly. Known developers won't risk sullying their reputation like this. Entire source code is available on github which anyone can review. This is not the same with stock roms.

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Should we believe this as true? What do this company gain by recording such data? Does Xiaomi and other companies take user consent to send anonymous data for feedback?

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theterminator said:
Should we believe this as true? What do this company gain by recording such data? Does Xiaomi and other companies take user consent to send anonymous data for feedback?

You can take it as truth because Chinese <insert any company> = Anti-privacy. Chinese companies use this data for commercial gains(aka ads etc) while Chinese govt use this data for more nefarious purposes & only the portion of this split off vary from company to company(so Huawei sends most data also to govt hence blacklisted by USA while Xiaomi till now sends less data to govt & hence still allowed by USA).

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whitestar_999 said:
You can take it as truth because Chinese = Anti-privacy. Chinese companies use this data for commercial gains(aka ads etc) while Chinese govt use this data for more nefarious purposes & only the portion of this split off vary from company to company(so Huawei sends most data also to govt hence blacklisted by USA while Xiaomi till now sends less data to govt & hence still allowed by USA).

When the thing is so known to all why do people here suggest such phones in the Buying Advice section? There no one talks about privacy?

theterminator said:
When the thing is so known to all why do people here suggest such phones in the Buying Advice section? There no one talks about privacy?

There are fewer phones from non-Chinese brands which perform great but don't fit OP's budget/requirements. I always have recommended to flash a custom rom on a new phone on day 1 irrespective of the brand both because of performance and privacy issues.

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SaiyanGoku said:
There are fewer phones from non-Chinese brands which perform great but don't fit OP's budget/requirements. I always have recommended to flash a custom rom on a new phone on day 1 irrespective of the brand both because of performance and privacy issues.

Flashing a custom ROM might not be a cakewalk even for a tech savvy person. Also, it carries a risk of bricking your phone right?
I think Chinese phones are like just another smartphone from a practical usage point speaking from experience after owning a Redmi N5P for a year. I always thought one or two year old flagship phones give a good performance at a much lower price.
I purchased Samsung M30s 6 months back for my wife and its display still amazes me. The phone doesn’t look a day old.

theterminator said:
Flashing a custom ROM might not be a cakewalk even for a tech savvy person. Also, it carries a risk of bricking your phone right?

It used to be a problem 3-4 years ago. Now-a-days, you can brick your phone if you flash things not meant for your phone. Hard bricking is rare and happens in cases when one doesn't follows the instructions properly.

theterminator said:
I always thought one or two year old flagship phones give a good performance at a much lower price.

Performance, maybe but they don't get updates and ultimately users will either look for custom roms or buy another phone. I haven't seen any Snapdragon 855 device on sale around 20-25k (except K20 pro). Samsung India still sells exynos variants of S10 series at a premium.

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theterminator said:
When the thing is so known to all why do people here suggest such phones in the Buying Advice section? There no one talks about privacy?

There aren't much better options plus redmi phones at least have the option to install custom roms unlike realme,oppo,vivo etc. Actually this is the first time redmi phones get caught in such privacy controversy(earlier it was there too but not at this scale) so from now onwards I will mention this along with suggesting not to use xiaomi own default browser & keyboard(user tracking or not, google products are much better than any Chinese software any day).

Samsung phones are good but gives less hardware/camera compared to similarly price redmi phones but still if gaming/camera is not a preference then I also suggest samsung phones especially for their amoled screen.

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SaiyanGoku said:
Performance, maybe but they don't get updates and ultimately users will either look for custom roms or buy another phone. I haven't seen any Snapdragon 855 device on sale around 20-25k (except K20 pro). Samsung India still sells exynos variants of S10 series at a premium.

Where does this difference matter, like when you’re doing what?

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SaiyanGoku said:
It used to be a problem 3-4 years ago. Now-a-days, you can brick your phone if you flash things not meant for your phone. Hard bricking is rare and happens in cases when one doesn't follows the instructions properly.

Actually that is the biggest issue even today, seen many posts on xda forums where users bricked their devices because of using wrong version of TWRP etc because of not so clear instructions/missed among the wall of text instructions.

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whitestar_999 said:
Samsung phones are good but gives less hardware/camera compared to similarly price redmi phones but still if gaming/camera is not a preference then I also suggest samsung phones especially for their amoled screen.

I think camera is a compromise in any phone below 20k? My Redmi’s camera quality was OK. Same is with Samsung M30s.

theterminator said:
Where does this difference matter, like when you’re doing what?

Exynos variants have bad battery life and throttling issues during intensive tasks. India doesn't gets snapdragon variants because samsung likes to cut costs.

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theterminator said:
I think camera is a compromise in any phone below 20k? My Redmi’s camera quality was OK. Same is with Samsung M30s.

Not necessarily, poco f1+gcam could contend with even high end 30k+ phones in camera quality. Mi A series has very good cameras. Note 7 pro also got a very good camera. Generally speaking samsung phone camera in under 20k almost always preform below redmi/realme phones though that does not mean they are bad.

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SaiyanGoku said:
Exynos variants have bad battery life and throttling issues during intensive tasks. India doesn't gets snapdragon variants because samsung likes to cut costs.

By ‘bad’ I’m guessing more than an hour less battery life? And by ‘Intensive’ I’m guessing playing games right?

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theterminator said:
By ‘bad’ I’m guessing more than an hour less battery life? And by ‘Intensive’ I’m guessing playing games right?

@omega44-xt use samsung phone with snapdragon processor so he should know more about this.

*geek.digit.in/community/threads/does-the-galaxy-s10e-support-volte-on-airtel.207285/post-2380689

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whitestar_999 said:
Not necessarily, poco f1+gcam could contend with even high end 30k+ phones in camera quality. Mi A series has very good cameras. Note 7 pro also got a very good camera. Generally speaking samsung phone camera in under 20k almost always preform below redmi/realme phones though that does not mean they are bad.

Offering low prices for high end contenders makes it more believable that they (oppo/vivo/Mi) value user’s data more? Otherwise why else would these companies have low margins? Or is it the classic case of disruptive marketing like Jio, & LG/Sam/Apple retaining their addition of brand value to their retail prices

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theterminator said:
Offering low prices for high end contenders makes it more believable that they (oppo/vivo/Mi) value user’s data more? Otherwise why else would these companies have low margins? Or is it the classic case of disruptive marketing like Jio, & LG/Sam/Apple retaining their addition of brand value to their retail prices

A bit of both but more emphasis is on disruptive marketing.e.g.redmi got a lot of flak for its initial pricing of K20 & K20 Pro because people were expecting lower prices while Redmi thought that Indian people are now ready to pay the premium for its premium devices. Also Chinese companies have the home field advantage in cutting manufacturing costs so their phones with similar hardware will always be cheaper than any non-Chinese manufacturer.

theterminator said:
By ‘bad’ I’m guessing more than an hour less battery life? And by ‘Intensive’ I’m guessing playing games right?

More close to 2 hours difference and not just playing games, recording, editing videos, and multi tasking is CPU intensive.

*www.anandtech.com/show/15647/samsung-galaxy-s20-ultra-snapdragon-exynos-battery-life-preview

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Never trust any chinese company, check their response btw

*www.xda-developers.com/xiaomi-mi-web-browser-pro-mint-collecting-browsing-data-incognito-mode/

theterminator said:
By ‘bad’ I’m guessing more than an hour less battery life? And by ‘Intensive’ I’m guessing playing games right?

The difference in performance was pretty low few years back, I think S810 era had better Exynos SoC as S810 was overheating & throttling a lot. Sadly throttling is a major issue this year. For few benchmark runs, S20 exynos holds up close to S865 but with time, performance falls below S855 level according to some tests.

Say out of 6 hrs SOT, if a phone lasts 1 hr less, that's a significant downgrade. Stand by times will be affected almost similarly.

This year, the situation is surely worse than it was earlier. That's why many videos & articles regarding poor Exynos SoC vs SD, esp by Europeans, who do spend on flagship phones. I think OP8 Pro can actually steal customers away from Samsung in the EU. Unless Exynos can bounce back next year, it will surely hurt Samsung a lot.

I do have a theory that Exynos SoC phones degrade faster in long run, in terms of performance than SD ones. Not much solid evidence. My father's Samsung C7 with S625 is still decently smooth whereas an uncle of mine has A7 (2017). I see more stuttering in A7 than C7 after close to 3 years. I know both phones had different usage history, but that's as close of a comparison I can get. Sadly don't know anyone with S8 exynos.

i was going to buy Poco X2 but after seeing this, Nokia 7.2 keeps fluctuating in front of my eyes & at times it is Oneplus 7t / 8.

billubakra said:
Never trust any chinese company, check their response btw

*www.xda-developers.com/xiaomi-mi-web-browser-pro-mint-collecting-browsing-data-incognito-mode/

Xiaomi smartphones are tracking usage habits and browsing data of their owners [Update]

From neowin.net

A more nuanced take on the matter. Pay attention to the portion marked "update" in the latter part of the article.

maheshn said:
Xiaomi smartphones are tracking usage habits and browsing data of their owners [Update]

From neowin.net

A more nuanced take on the matter. Pay attention to the portion marked "update" in the latter part of the article.

—START—

We would like to express our appreciation for researchers’ engagement, passionate and constructive discussion.

Given our goal of providing world class secure services and products to all users, our next Mint Browser and Mi Browser software update will include an option in incognito mode for all users of both browsers to switch on/off the aggregated data collection, in an effort to further strengthen the control we grant users over sharing their own data with Xiaomi. The software updates will be submitted to Google Play for approval within today (May 3, GMT+8).

We believe this functionality, in combination with our approach of maintaining aggregated data in non-identifiable form, goes beyond any legal requirements and demonstrates our company’s commitment to user privacy.

As always, Xiaomi welcomes users to participate in our product development and advancement. Listening to feedback from users and letting them take part in Xiaomi’s future have been at the core of our company from the beginning.

—END—

so they are saying they will correct it

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vidhubhushan said:
i was going to buy Poco X2 but after seeing this, Nokia 7.2 keeps fluctuating in front of my eyes & at times it is Oneplus 7t / 8.

Prefer OnePlus over Nokia.

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whitestar_999 said:
Prefer OnePlus over Nokia.

+Keep in mind that oneplus has some ultra next level bugs which they won't fix as soon as the next version releases

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billubakra said:
+Keep in mind that oneplus has some ultra next level bugs which they won't fix as soon as the next version releases

Heard something similar about Nokia phones where some say they have bugs regarding call audio/reception quality but at least OnePlus phones have better dev support at xda.

whitestar_999 said:
Prefer OnePlus over Nokia.

i am but the price difference is too much which makes choice difficult.

billubakra said:
+Keep in mind that oneplus has some ultra next level bugs which they won't fix as soon as the next version releases

i have noticed the same in Xiaomi as well.

whitestar_999 said:
Heard something similar about Nokia phones where some say they have bugs regarding call audio/reception quality but at least OnePlus phones have better dev support at xda.

strange I heard from few in a fb group that call reception quality is good compared to others. unfortunately most of the good youtubers don't review Nokia phones.

W

Well I will still suggest to at least see the stock android/Nokia UI & its features first because they will be missing a lot of things people take for granted in manufacturer roms. In fact I will even suggest to just get samsung M30s over Nokia just for those missing features.

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whitestar_999 said:
Heard something similar about Nokia phones where some say they have bugs regarding call audio/reception quality but at least OnePlus phones have better dev support at xda.

vidhubhushan said:
i am but the price difference is too much which makes choice difficult.

i have noticed the same in Xiaomi as well.

strange I heard from few in a fb group that call reception quality is good compared to others. unfortunately most of the good youtubers don't review Nokia phones.

Here are few of the bugs in bugplus
1. If you have exhausted your net limit for the day, then after it refreshes you will need to reboot to make it work.
2. Samsung Health won't work. Google Fit will show inaccurate data. (Tested by me)
3. Every update will have tons of bugs. Last ota had a bug in which even after you ended the call the call duration kept on running for a few seconds and eating your free call minutes. They fixed it after 3-4 months after receiving lots of backlash.
4. Not exactly a bug but they won't release their camera blob so to make Gcam work with all features you need to root or install a custom rom. So, much for user friendly.
Plus there are tons of other issues which I don't remember. Avoid this company. If you want stock os then look for other options.
Please check M30s or the M31 too as suggested above, the Oneui is dope.

whitestar_999 said:
Well I will still suggest to at least see the stock android/Nokia UI & its features first because they will be missing a lot of things people take for granted in manufacturer roms. In fact I will even suggest to just get samsung M30s over Nokia just for those missing features.

looks like you forgot dear. told you before that i am currently using Motorola G5S Plus as my main phone and Redmi 4A as backup. i don't miss any specific feature on it. this is why i never felt not going for any stock UI phone. in fact i felt it is better as it doesn't force me to use anything specific. i also considered samsung galaxy m31 as it comes with Android 10 and will provide security updates for some more time but main con of that is a plastic build. i will check some more samsung phones having better build.

initially i decided to get Poco X2.

BTW, today i saw a tweet from Mr. Manu Kumar jain saying that they have got nothing to hide so are open to any third party verification / security check.

billubakra said:
Here are few of the bugs in bugplus
1. If you have exhausted your net limit for the day, then after it refreshes you will need to reboot to make it work.
2. Samsung Health won't work. Google Fit will show inaccurate data. (Tested by me)
3. Every update will have tons of bugs. Last ota had a bug in which even after you ended the call the call duration kept on running for a few seconds and eating your free call minutes. They fixed it after 3-4 months after receiving lots of backlash.
4. Not exactly a bug but they won't release their camera blob so to make Gcam work with all features you need to root or install a custom rom. So, much for user friendly.
Plus there are tons of other issues which I don't remember. Avoid this company. If you want stock os then look for other options.
Please check M30s or the M31 too as suggested above, the Oneui is dope.

the biggest minus point it has is almost double the price of my current budget.

B

vidhubhushan said:
the biggest minus point it has is almost double the price of my current budget.

Naam bade darshan chote. Don't waste your money on them.

billubakra said:
Naam bade darshan chote. Don't waste your money on them.

Told sister I can get 2 satisfactory handsets for its price

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vidhubhushan said:
looks like you forgot dear. told you before that i am currently using Motorola G5S Plus as my main phone and Redmi 4A as backup. i don't miss any specific feature on it.

Yes I did. If you don't want those extra features then it is fine but I found their lack on stock android a big minus especially when 6gb/8gb ram phones are getting common nowadays.

whitestar_999 said:
Yes I did. If you don't want those extra features then it is fine but I found their lack on stock android a big minus especially when 6gb/8gb ram phones are getting common nowadays.

actually i got fed up with the bloatware and ad-infested miui so found stock better. still because of 6gb and people telling cleaner ui in poco, i decided to go for it. after mr. jain's tweet, i again felt like getting it but no e-commerce non-essential item delivery in red zone so it is either Nokia or Samsung (as offline shops will be open) if i need it before delivery starts. actually i was thinking of getting Poco X2 as main phone and a Nokia or samsung as backup. lets see what materialises. thanks dear.

Every company collects data.
You want to save cost and prevent data collection :
Buy Redmi and flash custom rom

You want to prevent data collection but have no knowhow of how to flash custom rom :
Buy iPhone. (Collection is there but not to Chinese companies)

You want to save cost, have no knowhow of how to flash custom rom, and save cost :
Get a feature phone.

You want the above requirements but want a smartphone instead ?
Make a phone.

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Nerevarine said:
Every company collects data.
You want to save cost and prevent data collection :
Buy Redmi and flash custom rom

You want to prevent data collection but have no knowhow of how to flash custom rom :
Buy iPhone. (Collection is there but not to Chinese companies)

You want to save cost, have no knowhow of how to flash custom rom, and save cost :
Get a feature phone.

You want the above requirements but want a smartphone instead ?
Make a phone.

On a more serious note, exactly what you said.

whitestar_999 said:
On a more serious note, exactly what you said.

if you are paranoid, then stop using any communication device

Watch Irumbu Thirai.

Rajat Rajput said:
Is it serious?

it is but then getting connected in any manner is serious. also xiaomi india first denied everything later xiaomi said it will release a new version of these apps.

*i.imgur.com/SUol7Ql.jpg
*i.imgur.com/nVM7NMe.jpg