U-turn? Who said there's ban on Xiaomi phones, asks Indian Air Force

After all the hoopla over Xiaomi security scare, the Indian Air Force has now come up with a clarification saying there are no restrictions in IAF regarding the use of smartphones from any brand, and that the advisory was issued 4 months ago.

IAF on Tuesday clarified to Indian Express that advisory against using phones from Chinese brand Xiaomi was about “four to five months old.” This means the alert was issued much before thebrand entered the Indian market.

“The advisory itself is about four months old. The strange thing is that it has now been pulled out by the media. No new notification has been issued by IAF recently regarding the use of Xiaomi smartphones. The advisory should not be misunderstood as a ban. There are no restrictions in IAF regarding the use of smartphones from any brand as it is totally for personal usage,” IndianExpress quoted an officer in the Western Command as saying.

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The officer further said that IAF doesn’t keep track of the smartphone market and neither does it recommend any particular brand or handset to its personnel.

“The advisory did not mention anything on banning the use of Chinese smartphones at all. It was more like a cautionary note as the handset was tracking user’s location and was sending the information to servers based in Beijing.” He said similar advisories had been issued before regarding the use of personal computers as well.

Last week, the news of IAF issuing an alert on banning Xiaomi phones was doing the rounds. It was reported that the defence agency has alerted all its Commands and Squadrons and suggested that Indian Air Force officers and their families should refrain from using Chinese mobile devices.

In-fact, the Chinese smartphone maker even said it will engage with Indian authorities to address the concerns about security of user's data . Xiaomi Vice President Hugo Barra said, “We are trying to get to the bottom of this. So far, we have not heard anything from the IAF or any other authorities and have only read media reports. We will reach out to authorities and engage with them to address any concerns that they might have.”

The earlier alert issued was believed to be based on an old F-Secure report that demonstrated how a Xiaomi Redmi 1S phone was sending data, including the user’s IMEI, phone number, and phone numbers of contacts added to the phone book to a remote server.

However, Xiaomi, whichhas soughtto deflect concerns about privacy that could hamper its efforts to expand overseas, on Monday announced that it will set up a data centre in India next year to store local user data . The fast-growing company said it was migrating some data on non-Chinese customers away from its servers in Beijing due to performance and privacy considerations.