Xiaomi Get a Clean Chit from Taiwan in the Data Breach Investigation
Xiaomi has had a fantastic year, but it also had to face several allegations and controversies. One of the prominent embarrassments for the company was the allegation that the company’s smartphones were sending user’s personal data to their servers in China without permission. This was seen as a serious allegation and it prompted a probe in Taiwan for Xiaomi and other smartphone brands.
It was a security agency called F-secure which found that Xiaomi was automatically syncing the files on the cloud. This incident led the Taiwanese authorities to initiate an investigation into handsets from major companies to check whether they are breaching data protection laws. Xiaomi responded by saying that cloud syncing was activated by default, which led to the issue. It then issued a new update which let the users decide whether they wanted to sync their data on the cloud or not.
It is important to know that it wasn’t just Xiaomi which faced the scrutiny from Taiwanese authorities. The National Communications Commission of Taiwan investigated 12 brands in total which also included devices from Apple, Samsung, LG, Sony, along with Chinese brands like Huawei and ZTE. All of these were cleared by the commission.
The investigators did ask the companies to strengthen the transfer of information on their devices and make them more secure. The Xiaomi data breach issue had also led the Indian Air force to issue a directive to its staff to refrain from using Chinese smartphones, especially Xiaomi. The company had then responded by moving its Indian user’s data to servers in India. It even plans to launch a local data center in India in 2015 to serve the needs of (and store data for) their Indian users.
It seems like after a few hurdles, Xiaomi’s ship is now in smoother waters. The company has some big plans for 2015 including a new flagship and more devices coming out of its stable. After this report, you can go ahead and register for the next flash sale with an ease of mind.
