India doubles down on Chinese app ban, blocking 118 more

India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is stepping up its efforts to block the use of Chinese apps in the country with a fresh ban of 118 more mobile applications. This is in addition to the 59 apps banned by the Government in June which included popular short-video app TikTok. 

 

The Ministry's latest move, once again made on grounds that such apps are engaged in activities that threaten India's soverignty and security, appears to be making a statement by including exactly double the number of mostly Chinese apps banned initially.   

 

Among them, is a wide variety of games including the popular but violent shooter game PUBG Mobile, owned by Tencent.  It also includes music players, video platforms like Youku, social platforms including WeChat Work, web browsers and search engines like Baidu, payment systems like Alipay and apps for learning the Chinese language. The ban list also consists of VPNs to access TikTok.

 

A statement from The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology suggested that the Government had 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 unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India.

 

The statement added, "There has been a strong chorus in the public space to take strict action against Apps that harm India’s sovereignty as well as the privacy of our citizens. 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."

 

FULL LIST OF NEWLY BANNED APPS IN INDIA