India bans more Chinese Apps after banning 59, and 47 Chinese Apps earlier

The Ministry of Information and Technology banned more Chinese apps including popular PUBG Mobile in the country on September 05, 2020. This time the government has banned 118 China-based apps. The apps are still available on Google Play store and Apple App store. PUBG Mobile has millions of downloads and active users in the country and this makes for a big loss of Tencent, the parent company. The Indian government has also banned the PUBG Mobile Lite app available on Google Play store. Meanwhile, the desktop version of the game, PUBG is still available in the country. PUBG Mobile is yet to issue a comment on the matter.

The IT Ministry stated in an official press release that the Chinese apps have been “banned under the section 69A of the Information Technology Act read with the relevant provisions of the Information Technology Rules 2009 and in view of the emergent nature of threats has decided to block 118 mobile apps since in view of the information available they are engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state and public order.”

Earlier, the Information and Technology Ministry banned (on July 24) 47 apps, which are clones or variants of Chinese-linked 59 apps earlier banned in June. Reasoning out the ban the ministry reportedly said that the problem is with the operational ethics of certain apps. This is an ongoing process. If apps qualify under the same grounds of operational ethics, then they will also come under the scanner. The “operational ethics” refers to data going back to the Chinese government.

Citing the “emergent nature of threats” from mobile applications, including popular ones of Chinese origin such as TikTok, ShareIt, UCBrowser, Club Factory and CamScanner, the Centre had banned 59 apps on June 29 based on information that they were engaged in activities “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity”, defence, security and public order.

Among the apps banned under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act are some of the most downloaded in the country, with Indians making up the largest chunk of many user bases. The move was seen as a retaliatory step amid the tense border standoff between India and China that led to 20 Indian Army personnel being killed on June 15. State-owned telecom companies also moved to keep Chinese vendors out of their network upgradation tenders.

“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 unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India,” the government had said in a statement on June 29. “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 such Apps pose threat to sovereignty and integrity of India, the Government…has decided to disallow the usage of certain Apps, used in both mobile and non-mobile Internet enabled devices,” it said.

The firms were asked to clarify their data-sharing norms under a Chinese law that requires companies of Chinese origin to share data with that country’s intelligence agencies, irrespective of where they operate. Additionally, the government is expected to ask companies without a presence in India to appoint a local grievance officer.

ByteDance tells US it won’t sell TikTok’s algorithm: Report

According to a South China Morning Post report, TikTok’s parent ByteDance has decided it won’t sell or transfer the algorithm behind the video-sharing app in any sale or divestment. TikTok’s parent ByteDance has decided it won’t sell or transfer the algorithm behind the video-sharing app in any sale or divestment. The company will not hand out the source code behind the social media platform but the company’s US based technology team would be free to develop a new algorithm, the newspaper said, adding that this would be a condition for a sale of the company’s US assets. Any TikTok deal would probably require negotiations between the US government and its Chinese counterpart to succeed.

Here’s the list of all 118 Chinese apps that have been banned in the country.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, dated September 05, 2020

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