Lithuania tells citizens to ditch Chinese phones after report finds built-in censorship capabilities

Lithuania tells its citizens to throw away their Chinese mobile phones after report found devices had built-in censorship capabilities

  • Cybersecurity body report found Xiaomi devices could detect and censor terms
  • ‘Free Tibet’, ‘Long live Taiwan independence’ or ‘democracy movement’ among terms included in the feature, which was turned off for EU region
  • However, it could be turned on remotely at any time, Tuesday’s report found  
  • The National Cyber Centre report also said the phone was sending encrypted phone usage data to a server in Singapore
  • A security flaw was also found in the P40 5G phone produced by Huawei
  • Xiaomi has not responded to the report which comes amid tensions with China 
  • Huawei said its phones do not send users’ data externally 


Lithuania’s Defense Ministry has advised citizens to throw away Chinese mobile phones or avoid buying them after a government report found some devices have built-in censorship capabilities.

Flagship phones sold in Europe by China‘s smartphone giant Xiaomi Corp have a built-in ability to detect and censor terms such as ‘Free Tibet’, ‘Long live Taiwan independence’ or ‘democracy movement’, Lithuania’s state-run cybersecurity body said on Tuesday.  

The capability in Xiaomi’s Mi 10T 5G phone software had been turned off for the ‘European Union region’, but can be turned on remotely at any time, the Defence Ministry’s National Cyber Security Centre said in the report.

‘Our recommendation is to not buy new Chinese phones, and to get rid of those already purchased as fast as reasonably possible,’ Defense Deputy Minister Margiris Abukevicius told reporters in introducing the report.

Xiaomi did not respond to a query for comment from Reuters news agency.

Lithuania’s Defense Ministry has advised citizens to throw away Chinese mobile phones or avoid buying them after a government report found some devices have built-in censorship capabilities. Pictured: A Xiaomi Mi Mix 3. Xiaomi was one of the companies found to have the technology in their handsets [Stock image]

The National Cyber Centre’s report also said the Xiaomi phone was sending encrypted phone usage data to a server in Singapore. 

A security flaw was also found in the P40 5G phone by China’s Huawei but none was found in the phone of another Chinese maker, OnePlus, it said.

Huawei’s representative in the Baltics told the BNS news wire its phones do not send user’s data externally.

The report said the list of terms which could be censored by the Xiaomi phone’s system apps, including the default internet browser, currently includes 449 terms in Chinese and is continuously updated.

‘This is important not only to Lithuania but to all countries which use Xiaomi equipment,’ the Centre said in the report. 

Relations between Lithuania and China have soured recently over the question of Taiwan’s sovereignty.  

China demanded last month that Lithuania withdraw its ambassador in Beijing and said it would recall its envoy to Vilnius after Taiwan announced that its mission in Lithuania would be called the Taiwanese Representative Office.

Taiwanese missions in Europe and the United States use the name of the city Taipei, avoiding a reference to the island itself, which China claims as its own territory. 

Lithuania is not among the fifteen UN member states to officially recognise Taiwan as the Republic of China. Those that do have no relationship with Beijing. 

However, Taiwan maintains unofficial diplomatic relations with many UN member states, including Lithuania.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke to Lithuania’s prime minister Ingrida Simonyte last week and stressed support for her country in the face of pressure from China. 

Lithuania is not among the fifteen UN member states to officially recognise Taiwan as the Republic of China. Those that do have no relationship with Beijing. However, Taiwan maintains unofficial diplomatic relations with many UN member states, including Lithuania. Pictured: Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu in front of a sign bearing the territory's official title in July 2020 [FIle photo]

Lithuania is not among the fifteen UN member states to officially recognise Taiwan as the Republic of China. Those that do have no relationship with Beijing. However, Taiwan maintains unofficial diplomatic relations with many UN member states, including Lithuania. Pictured: Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu in front of a sign bearing the territory’s official title in July 2020 [FIle photo]

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