Olympic Athletes Advised Not To Bring Phones To Beijing Over Spying Concerns

Athletes who are preparing to travel to Beijing for the Winter Games next month might want to think about leaving their personal smart phones at home. The reason: a new app developed by Beijing to track Olympic athletes’ health data has been found to have several startling security flaws, according to a group of Canadian researchers called Citizen Lab.

Citizen Lab told the NYT and other news organizations that it had shared its findings with the Beijing Organizing Committee on Dec. 3 but had not received any response. As a result, they’re warning all athletes about the app’s flaws, news that probably shouldn’t come as a surprise given the CCP’s reputation for mass surveillance.

According to the NYT, the app – called MY2022 –  is designed to transmit coronavirus test results, travel information and other personal data “failed to verify the signature used in encrypted transfers, or didn’t encrypt the data at all,” according to the report by Citizen Lab.

But the organization also found that the app will actively censor content viewed on users’ phones: a series of political terms have been marked for censorship in the code.

A Canberra-based cybersecurity company even went so far as to advise athletes to leave their phones at home, according to the Financial Review. – READ MORE