The Lithuanian Ministry of Defense advised its citizens not to buy Chinese cellphones and advised to throw away the Chinese phones they have. This warning was issued after a report by the Lithuanian government which found that the cellphones had been implanted with a sensor system.
The Lithuanian cybersecurity agency said Xiaomi's flagship phones sold in Europe have a built-in system that can detect and censor keywords such as 'Free Tibet', 'Long live Taiwan independence' or 'democracy movement'.
The National Cyber Security Center which is part of the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense said the feature has been turned off in the software for the Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G for the European Union region, but this feature can still be activated at any time.
"Our recommendation is not to buy new Chinese phones, and to dispose of the ones already purchased as quickly as possible," Lithuanian Deputy Defense Minister Margiris Abukevicius said.
The report reveals that the system in Xiaomi phones has a sensor list containing 449 keywords in Chinese and is constantly being updated. The system also includes the keywords entered into the browser.
"This is important not only for Lithuania but for all countries that use Xiaomi equipment," the National Cyber Security Center said in its report.
The Lithuanian government's appeal seems to have been influenced by the unstable relations between the two countries. Last month, China asked Lithuania to withdraw their ambassador in Beijing and threatened to withdraw their representation in Vilnius after Taiwan announced that their representative in Lithuania would carry the name of the Taiwanese Representation Office.
So far, Taiwan's representative offices in Europe and the United States have always used the name Taipei, and avoided using the name Taiwan which is claimed to be Chinese territory.
The National Cyber Security Center report also states that Xiaomi phones are known to transmit encrypted phone data to servers in Singapore. They also claimed to have found a security vulnerability in the Huawei P40 5G, but the same vulnerability was not found on OnePlus phones.
Huawei representatives in the Baltic region said that their phones do not transmit user data to external parties. Meanwhile, Xiaomi did not comment when asked for a response by Reuters.