Xuexi Qiangguo (application of the Communist Party of China)

2019: Announcement

In the middle of October, 2019 Cure53 company dealing with problems of cyber security found out that the Communist Party of China has access to all data to more than 100 million smartphones based on Android, thanks to the propaganda application which the government actively advanced among the citizens.

The Communist Party of China headed by the president Xi Jinping in January, 2019 started the application under the name Xuexi Qiangguo ("Studying of the great nation"). The application contains news articles and video, many of which are devoted to activity of the party or its ideology. For the purpose of promotion developers added a competitive element to the application — users can earn points for reading articles and commenting and also to pass different quizzes on knowledge of the state ideology. The application was immediately christened a hi-tech analog of "A red book" of Mao Tse Tung.

Cure53 dealing with problems of cyber security found out that the Communist Party of China has access to all data to more than 100 million smartphones based on Android

The analysis of encoding of the application showed that its settings allow the authorities to download messages and photos from phones of users, to browse their contacts, history of calls and viewing browsers and also allow to activate a dictophone remotely. According to a research, this application daily collects and sends the detailed reports containing complete user data. Authorities of China deny that the application contains such functions.

"Studying of the great nation" quickly became the most loaded the application in China so as of April, 2019 in it more than 100 million users are registered. However use of the application in China cannot be considered voluntary, despite assurances of the authorities — the Communist Party of China issued directives for all members who oblige them to load the application on the smartphone; the same decrees were issued by many organizations.^[1]

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