Xiaomi, the Beijing, China-based electronics company said today that it plans to open a data center in India soon.
Just days after a circular was sent out by the Indian Air Force to its personnel and their families warning them not to use Xiaomi smartphones owing to privacy concerns, the Chinese smartphone maker has announced that it will set up a data center in India in 2015 to handle local user data, according to Reuters.
The circular itself appears to be based on a report from security solutions company F-Secure from August this year, which indicated that Xiaomi phones were sending critical data like IMEI numbers, phone numbers and text messages to a server in China.
However, Xiaomi VP Hugo Barra released a statement on Facebook today to clear the air about the issue, saying that Xiaomi provides secure opt-in Web-based services, does not collect user data without permission, and encrypts user data for security.
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Xiaomi already operates data centers in China, and is currently migrating Indian users’ data to its other centers in Singapore and US. That data will move to the local center when it opens in India next year.
➤ China’s Xiaomi to set up India customer data center to deflect privacy concerns [Reuters]
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