India Blocks 348 Mobile Apps For Illegal of User Data

India Blocks 348 Mobile Apps For Illegal of User Data
Photo: unsplash.com 04.08.2022 660

The Economic Times reported this on Wednesday, citing minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

The minister said the apps carried out data transfers that “infringed the sovereignty and integrity of India, defense of the country and security of the state”. Rajeev Chandrasekhar also clarified that some of these applications were developed in China. 

Chandrasekar's statements came days after India banned the popular game BattleGrounds Mobile India, the Indian version of PUBG Mobile, which authorities fear is used to transfer Indians' personal data to a third party.

The game was created specifically for the Indian market by South Korean Krafton. 13.5 percent of Krafton is owned by China's Tencent, while India continues to have a strained relationship with China.

In February of this year, India also banned Free Fire game along with 53 other China-linked apps, citing security concerns.

In June 2020, the IT ministry had, in a similar order issued under Section 69 of the IT Act, banned 59 apps, including TikTok, ShareIt, UC Browser, Likee, WeChat, and Bigo Live. In its reasoning then, the ministry had said that these apps were “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”.

The first ban was followed by another set of 47 apps being barred from operations in India from July 2020. These apps were mostly proxies of the apps banned in June 2020.

Later, on September 2 that year, the IT ministry banned another 118 Chinese mobile apps, which included the popular gaming platform PUBG as well as Baidu, which is China’s largest search engine provider. In total so far, close to 300 apps and their proxies have been banned by the IT ministry.

digital markets  India 

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