Government Blocks 118 Mobile Apps Including PUBG Mobile

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has banned 118 more mobile apps under section 69A of the Information Technology Act. This time, the list includes one of the most popular mobile game, PUBG. This development comes after the fresh clash with China at eastern Ladakh. 

These apps are engaged in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order, the government said in a statement.

The Ministry of Electronics and 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 that 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,” the statement said. 

The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, Ministry of Home Affairs has also sent an exhaustive recommendation for blocking these malicious apps. Likewise, there have been similar bipartisan concerns, flagged by various public representatives, both outside and inside the Parliament of India. 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 these 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, said the government. 

Previously, the Government of India banned 59 Chinese apps citing the same security reason. That list included one of the most popular short video App Tik Tok.