F-Secure: Xiaomi Smartphones Do Secretly Steal Your Data

They may be well reviewed and China's new top selling phone, but reader DavidGilbert99 writes with reason to be cautious about Xiaomi's phones: Finnish security firm F-Secure has seemingly proven that Xiaomi smartphones do in fact upload user data without their permission/knowledge despite the company strongly denying these allegations as late as 30 July. Between commercial malware and government agencies, how do you keep your phone's data relatively private?

Comments

Why "relatively" private?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I want it totally private. Has the concept of privacy gotten so totally lost that people seem okay to settle for relative privacy?

By the way, the best way to keep your data private is to keep it out of your untrusted phone/computer/whatnot, and use bogus data when you need to enter something.

Exemples: use "Acme inc." as your home phone number's name in your addressbook, and nicknames for your contacts. Don't enter your full address as your home in your satnav's app but someone's address in a street close-by, etc.