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After ban on 59 Chinese apps, government blocks 47 more including PUBG

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After ban on 59 Chinese apps, government blocks 47 more.





The Information and Technology Ministry on Friday banned 47 apps, which are clones or variants of Chinese-linked 59 apps earlier banned in June. A month since the last ban, sources in the Ministry tells The Indian Express 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 source said “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 Union government has banned 47 Chinese apps, that were functioning as clones of the 59 banned apps, two people aware of the development said. In June, the Indian government had banned 59 Chinese apps, including Bytedance’s TikTok, Alibaba’s UC Browser, citing security concerns.

An official statement is awaited. Reportedly, the government has drawn up a list of 275 Chinese apps and will see if there is any violation in terms of national security and user privacy. According to a report in The Economic Times, “Tencent-backed PubG, Alibaba-owned Ali Express, phone maker Xiaomi, music streaming app Reso, owned by ByteDance among others are a part of the list of apps that could be banned by the government". The Union electronics and information technology ministry in an interim order on 29 June said that the apps were engaged in activities that are ‘prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order’. Following this, the ministry sent a list of 79 questions to these banned apps and gave them three-weeks' time to respond, failing which will lead to their permanent ban.