Indian Air Force Bans Xiaomi Phones

The Indian Air Force has asked employees and their families not to use Xiaomi phones. The Air Force fears that the smartphones store data of Indian users on Chinese servers and therefore pose a security risk.

The request was made a few weeks ago, but is only now coming out through an article in the Indian newspaper Economic Times. It is not an order, the newspaper notes, but an advice to employees and families. The advice comes at a time when Xiaomi is in the process of making its entrance into the Indian smartphone market with the release of Redmi 1S smartphone. India is one of the largest countries in the world and has hundreds of millions of phone users.

The IAF relies on a report by the Finnish security company F-Secure, which came out a few months ago. In it, F-Secure concluded that Xiaomi phones send unsolicited data to Chinese servers. Xiaomi openly denied the findings and opted-in to its chat service that sent the data. The Chinese phone maker is now moving servers to countries outside of China.

Xiaomi has only officially released its phones in a few Asian countries.