Privacy on chinese phones

[Metzger100]

Hey there,

I've been using my Realme 5 Pro with an ungoogled custom ROM for a while now, and I felt safe until I saw a video from The Linux Experiment (Videolink is with timestamp):

In the video, he mentions that he no longer wants to use a Chinese phone because China might force the manufacturer to install spyware. I know that The Linux Experiment is very skilled, but in this case I am not sure if he is a little bit paranoid. ^^

My questions are:
1. Is it possible for Chinese companies to spy on a phone with an open bootloader, custom ROM, and custom recovery?
2.1 I have already read that backdoors on the hardware side might be possible. Is this true?
2.2 How high is the risk of this happening?
2.3 What Information can they get with a backdoor on the hardware side?
3. How concerned should I be, because getting a phone without chinese influence is very hard?

Thanks for your help.

PS: I don't want political discussions. Just the technical view on my concerns, which are my personal opinion.

 

[blackhawk]

Hey there,

I've been using my Realme 5 Pro with an ungoogled custom ROM for a while now, and I felt safe until I saw a video from The Linux Experiment (Videolink is with timestamp):

In the video, he mentions that he no longer wants to use a Chinese phone because China might force the manufacturer to install spyware. I know that The Linux Experiment is very skilled, but in this case I am not sure if he is a little bit paranoid. ^^

My questions are:
1. Is it possible for Chinese companies to spy on a phone with an open bootloader, custom ROM, and custom recovery?

Yes.

2.1 I have already read that backdoors on the hardware side might be possible. Is this true?

Yes.

2.2 How high is the risk of this happening?

With the CCP, sky high.

2.3 What Information can they get with a backdoor on the hardware side?

Whatever they want, 100% control.

3. How concerned should I be, because getting a phone without chinese influence is very hard?

Don't know... it's a crap shoot.

Thanks for your help.

PS: I don't want political discussions. Just the technical view on my concerns, which are my personal opinion.

 

[Metzger100]

With the CCP, sky high.

2.2 How high is the risk of this happening?
Is it really worth the effort? wouldn't a Hardwarebackdoor mean, that you only get machine language which has to be processed and sorted?
For a very important device like the phone of a president or minister that might be a practical solution but how much work is it to do that for a massive amount of people?

Thanks for your answer!