Chinese propaganda app allows government to spy on users' phones

A propaganda app developed by the Chinese Communist Party could enable the government in Beijing to spy on users' phones.

More than 100 million Android users in China have downloaded the "Study the Great Nation" app since its launch in January.

In doing so these users have "essentially" given the Chinese Communist Party access to all of the data on their phones, according to Sarah Aoun, the director of technology at the Open Technology Fund.

Ms Aoun, whose organisation is financed by the US government via Radio Free Asia, told the Washington Post that the Chinese government was "expanding its surveillance into citizens' day-to-day lives".

The Open Technology Fund contracted a German cyber security firm called Cure53 to forensically analyse the code of the app on Android phones in a process known as reverse engineering.

Cure53 found that the app had actually been designed to resist these analytic attempts, but that it did contain a back door allowing a remote user to take control of the phone as if they were its owner.

Responding to the Washington Post, the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda department representatives denied that the app was capable of spying on its users.

Sky News' correspondent in Asia, Tom Cheshire, reported on the Communist Party's propaganda efforts earlier this year.

Colloquially known as the Little Red App - a reference to Chairman Mao's Little Red Book - the app contains news about Xi Jinping, party policies, quizzes, and video lectures on Marxism.

"This is the Chinese Communist Party promoting its propaganda through digital means," explained Tianyu Fang, a technology writer.

"Basically, you're encouraged to share these articles on WeChat or Weibo - social media outlets in China. By doing that you get points on it.

"If you get questions right [on the quizzes], that will give you points on the app. That will show up on a scoreboard and if you work for a state organisation, like a government agency, you perhaps have a leaderboard that everyone can see."

The app is targeted at party members and isn't compulsory for the general population. But it's still proving popular. Partly, that's because the term "propaganda" doesn't have quite the same sinister connotation in China as it does in the West.

"In China, some people embrace propaganda," Mr Fang explains. "The majority of the population in China, including those not in Beijing or Shanghai, they don't necessarily resist propaganda.

"They certainly don't resist propaganda on their phones. They simply see it as a better way to learn the party's ideals and they see it as a new propaganda."