In light of the recent Forbes report that put Xiaomi in the spotlight, the Chinese brand responded with a statement, saying that the article in question was riddled with inaccuracies. Now it appears that the company is addressing the concerns of privacy by updating the affected browsers.
According to the official Mi blog, Xiaomi says that it will be updating its incognito mode for all users on its homemade browsers. This includes the Mi Browser, Mi Browser Pro, and Mint Browsers. Specifically, Xiaomi says that users of its Mi devices will now find an option within the incognito mode that will allow them to either switch on and off the aggregated data collection.
For those who are just tuning in, privacy concerns were raised recently when a cybersecurity researcher discovered that Xiaomi’s devices were found to be logging the online and phone activity of millions of users using Mi’s default browser. Worse still, it was found that the data collection still persisted even in the browser’s incognito mode.
While the action is clearly a gesture of good faith, it’s hard to tell whether the on/off function genuinely turns off data collection entirely while in incognito mode, or if it will simply mask the phone’s data collecting activities.
In any case, the updates to the browsers are now live and can be downloaded via Google Play.
(Source: Xiaomi Blog)
