Consumers should throw away their Chinese phones and avoid buying new ones, Lithuania’s Defence Ministry has warned.
A report by its National Cyber Security Centre tested 5G mobiles from Chinese manufacturers.
It claimed that one Xiaomi phone had built-in censorship tools while another Huawei model had security flaws.
Huawei said no user data is sent externally and Xiaomi said it does not censor communications.
"Our recommendation is to not buy new Chinese phones, and to get rid of those already purchased as fast as reasonably possible," said Defence Deputy Minister Margiris Abukevicius.
Censorship
Xiaomi’s flagship Mi 10T 5G phone was found to have software that could detect and censor terms including “Free Tibet”, "Long live Taiwan independence" or "democracy movement", the report said.
It highlighted more than 449 terms that could be censored by the Xiaomi phone's system apps, including the default internet browser.
In Europe, this capability had been switched off on these models, but the report argued it could be remotely activated at any time.
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6 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Here's a link to a list of the very few phones that are not made in China. I was sad to learn that my Motorola 5g was not one of them. It's a great phone especially for the price. At least it has an American name even though it is a Chinese company.
Lorajay
Level 9
Sep 23, 2021
1
I believe that Motorola is now Chinese owned by Lenovo
[en.wikipedia.org]
Thanks. I enjoyed the read.
There are non-Chinese phones?
AnneWimsey
Level 9
Sep 22, 2021
3
A VERY few nowadays.
Early Nokias were made in Finland, but not now.
.... Remember, almost all phones are actually manufactured in China, even those that are supposedly of European or American branding. So yet another western weakness is surfacing.
This is what comes of money driven company managers outsourcing stuff to China for the sake of profit and share price.
Petter
Level 9
Sep 22, 2021
3
Do you have such shattering secrets to maintain that you are so paranoid Petter?
An Heinz 57 breed Australian I knew always used to throw into the phone conversation that he was sending the dynamite cases laden vamel down the road with the timer fuse primed to some poor unsuspecting soul, usually a politician or police chief in the the hope that ASIO would come a knocking.
How are you going with that nice Chinese phone that you extolled a few years ago. Is the post still there?
@FrayedBear Still using it. But I won't be buying their new models. China's government is now flexing its muscles, having achieved parts one and two of it's very long-term plan.
@Petter 1 & 2 - more like #55. They have long said that they will take the world over.
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