After IAF alert, Xiaomi is moving Indian users' data to servers outside of China

Hugo Barra, who is the face of Xiaomi or Mi in India, has finally reached out to users after allegations about the lack of user security made against the Chinese phones. Talking about the reports earlier this week that claimed Xiaomi phones steal user data and send it to **remote servers in China** , he wrote to Firstpost and explained some key points. Firstly, he clarified how Xiaomi takes user privacy very seriously. Barra goes on to explain that ‘users will always be notified beforehand in situations when we require your personal information, and will have to approve the request.’  He adds, “We offer various Internet based services such as Mi Cloud and Cloud Messaging which require data to be stored in the cloud. We take rigorous precautions to ensure that all data is secured when uploaded to Xiaomi servers and is not stored beyond the time required. Mi Cloud and Cloud Messaging are opt-in services which users can turn on and off at any time, giving users complete control.” Moving to the concerns raised by Indian Air Force and F-Secure, Barra said that  the issue has been addressed. Earlier this week, an Indian Air Force (IAF) alert note disclosed, “F-secure, a leading security solution company, recently carried out a test of Xiaomi **Redmi 1s** , the company’s budget smartphone, and found that the phone was forwarding carrier name, phone number, IMEI (the device identifier) plus numbers from address book and text messages back to Beijing.” IAF has suggested its air force officers and their families to refrain from using Chinese mobile devices. Previously, the Indian Army had issued a similar security alert against Chinese mobile applications. “We believe the advisory circular issued by IAF is based on events about 2 months back.  It refers to the F-Secure test done on the Redmi 1S in July 2014 about the activation of our Cloud Messaging service (which enables users to send text messages for free). We immediately addressed the concerns raised, which was directly acknowledged by F-Secure four days later,” Barra explained. Barra has also put up a post on Facebook stating the company has begun moving Indian users’ (along with other non-Chinese users) data to servers outside of China. **Click here**  to see how the whole process will work. Earlier in August, the Taiwanese government had also started investigating whether Xiaomi is a cyber security threat and said it will make a decision within three months. The government had begun performing independent tests on Xiaomi phones after reports about some models automatically sending user data back to the firm’s servers in mainland China surfaced.