Xiaomi migrating some non-Chinese customer data from Beijing servers

Fast-growing Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi yesterday said it was migrating some data on non-Chinese customers away from its servers in Beijing due to performance and privacy considerations, Reuters reported.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) had earlier this week accused Xiaomi phones of snooping and stealing data. The user data was then sent to servers remotely located in China.

In fact, the IAF was also believed to have alerted all its Commands and Squadrons and mandated that air force officers and their families refrain from using Chinese mobile devices.

Data belonging to the privately-owned company's non-Chinese users would be moved in phases to Amazon servers in the US as also data centres in Singapore, according to Xiaomi vice president Hugo Barra's blog post  Wednesday on Google Plus.

Commentators point out that the move comes after Apple earlier this year allowed China Telecom Corp to store Chinese user data with China Telecom Corp, the first time the iPhone maker had kept user data on Chinese mainland.

User privacy continues to be a key issue for Xiaomi as it looked to overseas expansion, having risen in the three years since it was founded, to become the top smartphone vendor in China, according to industry analysts.

It had already faced several privacy controversies, among them, accusations from international security researchers and a government agency in Taiwan that it funneled unauthorised user data back to its servers in Beijing.

Meanwhile, Xiaomi was moving customer data and its internet platforms to servers outside China, just months after it apologised over privacy concerns, IDG News Service reported.

According to an online post by company vice president Hugo Barra, since early this year, Xiaomi had been migrating the data as a way to "cut down latency and reduce failure rates" for its customers across the world.

"At the same time, it also better equips us to maintain high privacy standards and comply with local data protection regulations," Barra added. "This is a very high priority for Xiaomi as we expand into new markets over the next few years."

Xiaomi had been aggressively expanding outside China following its emergence as the largest smartphone maker in its home market. However, its growing international presence had also brought new scrutiny to the company, including concerns about its privacy policies.

In August, it was reported in neighboring Taiwan that Xiaomi phones had been sending data back to a company server without users' permission.

Xiaomi later apologised and introduced changes to its phone software.