India Orders a Tracking App to Be Installed in All Smartphones
The government said the rules were needed to prevent theft and other crime. Its opponents and privacy activists regard the app as a tool of mass surveillance.
India’s government sent a notice to private companies last week giving them 90 days to ensure that a government app was “preinstalled on all mobile handsets manufactured or imported for use in India.”
The order said the requirement was meant “to identify and report acts that may endanger telecom cybersecurity.” On Tuesday, the government explained that the app, Sanchar Saathi, was intended to prevent crime, including the theft and smuggling of phones and the call-center fraud that wreaks havoc within India and abroad.
Reuters had already reported the order’s existence on Monday night, and copies were circulated online. Many people in India were in uproar, as were the political parties opposed to the tech-focused and strong-armed government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Sanchar Saathi is a snooping app,” Priyanka Gandhi, a scion of the Congress Party and its general secretary, wrote on social media. “There’s a very fine line between reporting fraud and seeing what every citizen of India is doing on their phone.”
The app can track phone locations, and Ms. Gandhi and other critics of Mr. Modi regard it as a tool of mass surveillance.
By Tuesday afternoon, the government appeared to be backpedaling. Jyotiraditya Scindia, the minister of communications, said that while “this app exists to protect them from fraud and theft,” it was also “completely optional.”
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
