Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) on January 13 said that it has found no evidence of censorship capabilities in Xiaomi phones, Reuters reported. In September last year, Lithuania’s Defence Ministry published a report alleging that Xiaomi devices have the built-in ability to detect and censor terms like “Free Tibet”, “Women’s Committee”, and “Long live Taiwan’s independence” and although this censorship capability is turned off for phones sold in the European region, the company has the ability to remotely activate it. Following these allegations, Germany's cybersecurity watchdog launched a technical investigation into the Chinese manufacturer. Since Xiaomi leads the smartphone market in India with a 23 percent market share, these allegations raised concerns on how this alleged capability can be misused by the Indian government, especially in light of the Information Technology Rules 2021, which requires platforms to proactively identify and take down content deemed illegal by the government using automated tools. However, a BSI spokesperson told Reuters that the cybersecurity agency was "unable to identify any anomalies that would require further investigation or other measures." The agency did not provide any additional details to back its claim. This finding must come as a relief to Xiaomi, especially since the company is currently being investigated by Indian tax authorities for allegedly evading customs duty worth Rs 653 crore. What were the allegations against Xiaomi? A cybersecurity assessment carried out by Lithuania's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), found the following major cybersecurity risks associated with Xiaomi and Huawei devices: Censorship capabilities of Xiaomi devices: The study found that Xiaomi apps including…
