Government Surveillance on Chinese vs US made phones (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 days ago by tapdattl@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Question that I've been mulling over recently: My threat model dictates that I'm more likely to be surveilled by the US government than by the Chinese government. We can also assume that the Chinese government is not going to cooperate with the US government in any investigations of potential activist activity.

Would it not be best, then, to use a Chinese-made phone that, even though we know that information is going to China, we can also assume that any backdoors in the system are unknown to the US Gov?

I'm interested in everyone's take on this.

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[-] tapdattl@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Valid point, more specifically I'm talking about phones developed, manufactured, and sold by Chinese companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi.

[-] artyom@piefed.social 9 points 3 days ago

I see. I don't really think the hardware is terribly relevant. The software, and how you use it, is what matters most.

[-] pineapple@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago

And most phones are shipped with software that is often difficult to change.

this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026

43 points (100.0% liked)

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