National Communications Commission (NCC) Chairman Howard Shyr (石世豪) yesterday confirmed that two of Xiaomi Corp’s (小米) smartphone models continue to pose information security risks even after the China-based company had upgraded its operating system.
Shyr made the statement at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, where he was scheduled to brief lawmakers on the commission’s operations. However, a majority of the lawmakers were more concerned about the information security risks associated with the use of the Chinese smartphones following a report in August by a Finnish security company that Xiaomi’s built-in text-messaging application can send a user’s information to the company’s servers in Beijing without their approval.
Shyr said the commission had entrusted a laboratory with the task of conducting further tests on the two types of Xiaomi phone in question.
“We ran two tests last month and found that there were indeed abnormalities in the way the messages were being transmitted. The smartphones would send information to several servers, including those in China, after the mobile phones were turned on. This can be done with or without SIM cards installed,” Shyr said. “If the user sends text messages, the phone numbers of both the message sender and the recipient are sent to several servers overseas as well.”
Shyr added that some of the messages were transmitted back to the servers, which “had gone beyond the range of customer service.”
Although Xiaomi had recently upgraded its operating system, these issues were not resolved.
“We will continue following up on this if the company continues to disrespect consumers,” Shyr said.
Asked by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-tse (李昆澤) if he would suggest that government officials be banned from using Xiaomi smartphones, Shyr said that none of the NCC’s commissioners or staff use the problematic smartphones.
However, any upgrade in national measures to enhance information security would have to be decided by Minister of Science and Technology Simon Chang (張善政), who is also the Cabinet’s information security chief, Shyr said.
Shyr said he would discuss the matter with Chang.
Lawmakers also discussed public concern over the service quality offered by 4G service operators.
DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said that consumers pay more to gain access to 4G services, but the system automatically switches to 3G if 4G is not available.
Users are still charged based on 4G rates, even though they can only access 3G services under those circumstances, Tsai said, urging the NCC to investigate if consumers are being fairly charged.
DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said that a 4G operator claimed that it can offer unrestricted access to 4G services for just NT$599 per month.
Given the small range of bandwidth that the operator had obtained in the auction last year, Yeh said that it was possible that the operator had misled consumers with false advertising.
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