Sure, if you want to trust all your most personal info to Xiaomi. I don't know any security folks who consider that a rational choice anymore. I don't want Beijing having that info on me, plus the ability to surveil me at any time.
It is supported by LineageOS, at least[1]. I have been using one as a daily driver for the past week, and though the hardware is nice otherwise, the band support in the US is poor.
Google - Wants my data, willing to play the long game, has the scale to properly support security updates
Third party US manufacturers - Wants my data, playing the short game, suspect UI choices
Chinese manufacturers - Wants my data, suspect UI choices, unknown motives with regard to data privacy
Open source OSs - High data privacy, absolutely controllable OS
Weighting between the 4, my threat model prefers a Google phone, despite the privacy downside. Google does creepy things, but ultimately they don't really care if a power user turns off tracking: they only care if everyone turns off tracking.
They sayy they care about privacy and yes, they make most money on selling devices and not on advertisement, but who guarantees that is not to change any moment?
And aren't they allready in the advertisement buisness as well? So also have a motive for getting and evaluating all your data?
Is there actual evidence of wrongdoing on Xiaomi's part? If they're abusing my data it should be trivial to verify by MITMing my device. Can you point to someone who has done this and found something?
Forgive me if I don't take your word for it. There's been a lot of anti-anything-that-isnt-america news going around lately.
Anyhow, as another poster points out, it has LineageOS support, which is what I use.
Sure, if you want to trust all your most personal info to Xiaomi. I don't know any security folks who consider that a rational choice anymore. I don't want Beijing having that info on me, plus the ability to surveil me at any time.