The Lithuanian government has advised against buying Chinese-made cell phones following an investigation by the country's State Cybersecurity Agency that reveals censorship functions built into the devices.

"Our recommendation is not to buy new Chinese phones and get rid of those already purchased as soon as possible," Lithuanian Deputy Defense Minister Margiris Abukevicius said on Tuesday.

A report by the National Cybersecurity Center, which tested 5G cell phones from Chinese manufacturers, concluded that one Xiaomi device has built-in censorship tools, while another Huawei model may be vulnerable to cyber attacks.

According to the work of Lithuanian specialists, Xiaomi's flagship phone, the Mi 10T 5G, has software that can detect and censor terms such as "free Tibet", "Long live Taiwan's independence" or "democratic movement".

It was also highlighted that over 449 terms could be censored by Xiaomi's phone system apps, including the default web browser. In Europe, this feature has been disabled on these models, but the report maintains that it can be enabled remotely at any time.

Researchers also found that the Xiaomi device was transmitting encrypted phone usage data to a server in Singapore. "This is important not only for Lithuania, but for all countries that use Xiaomi equipment," the report added.

The smartphone maker recently became popular after launching inexpensive models, recording a 64 percent increase in revenue in the second quarter compared to the previous year.

The investigation also revealed a defect in the Huawei P40 5G. "The official Huawei application store, AppGallery, directs users to third-party electronic stores where some applications have been assessed by antivirus programs as malicious or infected with viruses," reads the joint statement of the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense and its National Cyber ​​Center for Security.

A Huawei spokesman told the BBC that the company complies with the laws and regulations of the countries in which it operates, and focuses on cybersecurity and privacy. "Data is never processed outside of a Huawei device," he said.

"AppGallery collects and processes only the data that is necessary to enable its customers to find, install and manage third-party apps in the same way that other app stores (do)," he added.

The publication of the document comes at a time when tensions between Lithuania and China are mounting. Last month, China demanded that Lithuania withdraw its ambassador from Beijing and announced that it would in turn withdraw its envoy from Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

The dispute began when Taiwan announced that its missions in Lithuania would be called the Taiwan Delegation. Other Taiwan embassies in Europe and the United States use the name of the country's capital, Taipei, to avoid reference to the island itself, which China claims to be its own territory.