Delete China’s Spy App

By Ben Sasse

Friday, February 04, 2022

 

The Chinese Communist Party is forcing anyone who goes to the 2022 Olympics to download an app called My2022. The stated plan is to use it to monitor “health and travel data” — which, in China’s surveillance dystopia, is sinister enough. But there are even more menacing ways Chairman Xi could use this app to spy on users.

 

Americans — athletes and attendees alike — should delete the app. And Apple and Google should pull it from their app stores. The Olympics are about celebrating human achievement, not building a massive spy ring for the Chinese Communist Party.

 

For years, Chairman Xi has advanced tyranny through investments in Chinese technology. In the northwest province of Xinjiang, the CCP has weaponized big data to make his genocide of the Uyghurs both more subtle and efficient. Now, at the Olympics, My2022 provides a new, international test population for CCP experiments with cyber-espionage.

 

The My2022 app’s origins are sketchy at best. It was developed by a state-run company and initially relied on technology developed by iFlyTek. iFlyTek isn’t just another Silicon Valley–style tech company — it is an active participant in genocide and in the CCP’s surveillance state. The U.S. government has actually blacklisted iFlyTek due to human-rights and security concerns. Americans would be foolish to trust firms such as iFlyTek.

 

The CCP blurs the line between the private and public sectors in China’s tech economy so much that it is largely imaginary. My2022’s developers have told American companies that they’ve removed iFlyTek technology from the app. But that’s a distinction without a difference. China-based companies are required by law to give the CCP unrestricted access to the user data collected by app.

 

CCP spies can use flaws in My2022’s security to steal data. The app is supposed to encrypt data so third parties can’t see it, but there are massive holes in encryption that hackers can exploit. CCP authorities may have insisted on building these weaknesses into the app — but even if they didn’t, we can be sure they will try to exploit them.

 

The CCP hasn’t been subtle about using My2022 to squash potential dissidents. It has bullied the International Olympic Committee into claiming that the app is designed to prevent the spread of Covid and ensure athletes are “safe within the closed loop environment,” but that’s not the full truth. The app includes a feature enabling users to report “politically sensitive content” to authorities. This is particularly chilling given Chinese officials’ threats to punish foreign athletes under oppressive domestic-speech laws if they use their Olympic platforms to speak out against atrocities committed by the Chinese government. Clearly the CCP’s agenda is to quarantine the truth.

 

American companies shouldn’t be the CCP’s partners in crime. They have a responsibility to protect our citizens from CCP cyber-espionage. Right now, the way most athletes, coaches, and journalists are downloading My2022 is through Apple and Google’s app stores. It is time for those companies to protect their customers and shut down this spyware.

 

The only thing that matters to the CCP is its own power. Its members are willing to use whatever technology, bribery, and propaganda they think will secure their tyranny. The Olympics are just another venue for the CCP to project that terrifying vision into the world — and there is no reason American companies should help.

 

The CCP is running the same cynical playbook used in the 2008 Summer Games. As the late Chinese dissident and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo wrote in one essay about those Olympics, “once the Olympics were declared the highest political mission, that meant they trumped everything else.” China’s dictators used “unlimited power” to make sure that “everybody fell in line to pursue the overriding political goal.” Whether it is iFlyTek or Apple or Google, the CCP just views these companies as tools to silence dissent and impose their will on the world.

 

In these Olympics, Apple and Google have leverage over Chairman Xi. He needs major concessions from U.S. corporations to make these Olympics a success. American companies shouldn’t be in the business of helping the CCP maintain its hold on power.

 

Americans shouldn’t ever subject themselves to literal Chinese spyware. The only way to truly evade the CCP’s snooping is to delete My2022. The FBI and the U.S. Olympic Committee are advising Olympians to bring burner phones to the Games, but that won’t be enough to stop the CCP from snagging vital data on the folks who download the app. Americans should call foul on the CCP’s violations of digital security and privacy.

 

The flag Team USA competes under represents freedom, but the My2022 app is the opposite of that. Our athletes and the Americans who go to cheer them on should refuse to download it.