A report by the Stanford Internet Observatory says the core technology used in Clubhouse, the world’s most popular audio chat social platform, is from a Chinese company, putting user data at risk of being stolen by the Chinese government. The software developer responded Saturday by saying it would review and strengthen its data security protections.
According to Deutsche Welle, Feb. 13, in response to the Stanford study, Clubhouse said that although the developers did not choose to make the App available in China, some users downloaded the app through other means, meaning that the content of conversations in chat rooms that Chinese users participated in could be leaked. stating, “With the help of researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory, we have identified several areas where data protection could be further strengthened.” The statement also noted, “Within the next 72 hours, we will be rolling out updates to add additional encryption and patches to prevent Clubhouse clients from transmitting data to Chinese servers. We also plan to engage an outside data security firm to review and evaluate the improvement steps we have made.”
Clubhouse is a smartphone application that will be available in spring 2020, though the app was blocked in mainland China last week.
The Stanford Internet Observatory published a report saying that it has been confirmed that Chinese company Agora Inc provides the backend infrastructure for Clubhouse, so it is likely that Agora has access to users’ raw audio data and therefore the potential to hand it over to the Chinese government. The report also notes that the research team observed that chat room metadata was relayed to servers believed to be located in China, while audio data was relayed to servers managed by Chinese entities. The report also notes, however, that the researchers believe the Chinese government should not have access to the data if the audio is stored in the United States.
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