New Delhi, June 30 2020: Late last night, the Indian government, announced the blocking of 59 popular mobile apps, a ban apparently aimed as Chinese companies.
The ban evoked section 69A of the Information Technology Act read with the relevant provisions of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking of Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009 and cited “the emergent nature of threats… and in view of information available they are engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.”
The notification claimed that “the Ministry of Information Technology has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India. 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.”
Among the apps now banned is TikTok the most downloaded mobile app in India, with more than 120 million active users. The app enables users to create short videos and overlay voices or music and surpassed 2 billion downloads globally in April, according to San Francisco-based market intelligence firm SensorTower. It saw a surge in india during the Covid lockdown.
Other apps to be blocked include:
Helo, a social networking app with more than 4 million users in India. Both TikTo9k and Helo come from the same parent company in hina, ByteDance
UC Browser from the Chinese company Alibaba, is today India's No. 2 internet browser after Google Chrome with 22 percent market share. It comes by default on many made-in-China phones.
Some like Mi Community and Mi Video are propriety tools to be found on phones and devices fromXiaomi.
Club Factory is India’s third-largest online shopping app
Another app widely used on Indian handphones is CamScanner used to scan documents and pictures. It has about 100 million users.
Interestingly Bigo Live (global livestreaming platform), Likee (global short video creation platform)are the products of a Singapore-based company.
Reactions:
Berges Malu, Director- Public Policy, ShareChat, leading regional social media platform:
"This is a welcome move from the government against platforms that have had serious privacy, cyber security and national security risks. We expect the government to continue their support for the Indian startup ecosystem".
Vivek Chandy, Joint Managing Partner at J Sagar Associates: “The access to, and storage and usage of, data of Indian users by several of these apps was apparently a concern for some time already. While the protection of that data may be the ostensible reason for this move, its impact on the companies concerned will remain to be seen. In addition to this move, the government should look at strengthening India’s data privacy and protection laws”
The Internet Freedom Foundation, a non-government organisation has raised some questions in a tweet: “The website blocks are directed on an aggregated basis against 59 websites. Here common grounds and reasoning is made which goes against the individualised nature of the blocking power under Section 69A and the Blocking Rules” It added: ‘Bans’ are absolute prohibitions. These must be adopted as a last step (after) examining a wider roster of regulatory interventions including fines and directions.
Full list of banned apps: