Amid growing tensions with China over the situation at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has now banned 118 more Chinese mobile applications, including the very popular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). Earlier in June this year, the Indian government had banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including TikTok, UC Browser, Weibo, Baidu Map and Baidu Translate, stating that they were “prejudicial to the sovereignty, integrity and security of the country”.
This is the third time that the Indian government has issued a list of mobile applications made by Chinese companies which are to be banned. The first list had come out on 29 June, and another list of 47 Chinese apps had been issued in July to ban programs that were trying to clone the banned apps on the first list.
The Electronic and IT ministry stated that it has received many complaints from various sources, including several reports about the misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms, for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India. It stated, “The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures.”
“On the basis of these and upon receiving of recent credible inputs that information posted, permissions sought, functionality embedded as well as data harvesting practices of above stated Apps raise serious concerns that these Apps collect and share data in surreptitious manner and compromise personal data and information of users that can have a severe threat to security of the State,” the ministry added.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre of the MHA has also sent an exhaustive recommendation for blocking these malicious apps. Likewise, there have been similar bipartisan concerns, raised both outside and inside Parliament.
The statement also mentioned, “In the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India and security of the State, and using the sovereign powers, the Government of India has decided to block the usage of certain apps, used in both mobile and non-mobile Internet enabled devices. This move will safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users. This decision is a targeted move to ensure safety, security and sovereignty of India.”
Some of the most popular apps on the list include CamCard Business Card Reader, WeChat reading, Tencent Weiyun, Baidu Express Edition and PUBG. India is the largest market for PUBG, accounting for 24% of total downloads and about 175 million installations of the app till date.