"FBI urging Olympic athletes to keep personal phones at home" 
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-60034013


The Beijing Winter Olympics app that all Games attendees must use contains 
security weaknesses that leave users exposed to data breaches, analysts say.

The My2022 app will be used by athletes, audience members and media for daily 
Covid monitoring.

The app will also offer voice chats, file transfers and Olympic news.

But cybersecurity group Citizen Lab says the app fails to provide encryption on 
many of its files. China has dismissed the concerns.

Questions about the app come amid a rise in warnings about visitors' tech 
security ahead of the Games, which begin on 4 February.

People attending the Beijing Olympics should bring burner phones and create 
email accounts for their time in China, cyber security firm Internet 2.0 said 
on Tuesday.

Several countries have also reportedly told athletes to leave their main 
devices at home.

Censorship concerns

The Citizen Lab report said it had found a "censorship keywords" list built 
into the app, and a feature that allows people to flag other "politically 
sensitive" expressions.

The list of words included the names of Chinese leaders and government 
agencies, as well as references to the 1989 killing of pro-democracy protesters 
in Tiananmen Square, and the religious group Falun Gong, which is banned in 
China.

The analysts noted that these features and security flaws are not uncommon for 
apps in China but posed a risk to users nonetheless.

Analysts said the "illegal words" file appeared currently to be inactive, but 
it was unclear.

All visitors to the Games are required to download the app 14 days prior to 
their departure for China, and use it to record daily their Covid status.

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