Better to be safe than sorry. The United States Olympic Committee is telling every American athlete to leave their personal phones in the States and instead bring a burner phone with them to the Winter Olympics in China.
Why? Because China would steal their data. In 2019, China was caught secretly installing spyware on tourists’ phones. And recently, a research group discovered that China’s My2022 Olympic app, which all attendees of the games are required to install, is laden with security holes that could lead to hacking, surveillance, and other privacy breaches.
Here’s part of the advisory the USOC sent their athletes.
“Every device, communication, transaction and online activity may be monitored. Your device(s) may also be compromised with malicious software, which could negatively impact future use.”
Once American athletes get to China, they are going to have to find some creative ways to kill downtime because if history is a guidepost, China will probably restrict athletes’ access to the internet. Something called “The Great Firewall of China” blocks popular websites in China. Google, Twitter, Netflix, Facebook, YouTube are all on the list. When the Summer Games were held in Beijing in 2008, China promised that Olympians would have unrestricted to the web. Psyche. It didn’t happen.
China promises that all websites will be accessible, but it’s unclear if they will follow through.
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