A smartphone app supplied to Olympians and others attending the Winter Olympics next month in Beijing has become the source of controversy. The flap began when Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory at University of Toronto, claimed the app has a security flaw in the encryption protecting users’ voice audio and file transfers that make it vulnerable to spying. The app, known as MY2022, provides health customs forms, which transmit passport details, demographic information, and medical and travel history.
However, the International Olympics Committee said that two cyber security testing organizations had confirmed there are “no critical vulnerabilities.”
“The user is in control over what the My2022 app can access on their device. They can change the settings already while installing the app or at any point afterwards. It is not compulsory to install ‘My 2022’ on cell phones, as accredited personnel can log on to the health monitoring system on the web page instead,” the IOC said in a ZDNet report.
Larry Diamond, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, advised athletes to buy a cheap prepaid phone, known as a burner phone, instead of taking personal phones with them, according to HT Tech. He noted that China is building a “sophisticated authoritarian digital surveillance state” and care should be taken when interacting in the country.
Indeed, censorship in China has been the subject of widespread reports and spying in the country long rumored. In its analysis of the MY2022 Olympics App, Citizen lab said it includes features that “allow users to report ‘politically sensitive’ content, including a censorship keyword list, which, while presently inactive, targets a variety of political topics including domestic issues such as Xinjiang and Tibet as well as references to Chinese government agencies.”
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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