As part of the government's 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat' campaign, the Indian Army has developed a "simple and secure" messaging application called the "Secure Application for the Internet (SAI)". The SAI mobile app will be utilised by the Army to facilitate secure messaging.
The mobile app has been developed in wake of security concerns over use of commercial mobile apps by Army officials for communicating with each other. The application supports end-to-end secure voice, text and video-calling services for Android platform. The model is similar to commercially available messaging applications like WhatsApp, Telegram, SAMVAD and GIMS.
"SAI scores over on security features with local in-house servers and coding which can be tweaked as per requirements," a government statement said.
The application has been vetted by CERT-in empanelled auditor and Army Cyber Group. The process for filing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), hosting the infrastructure on NIC and working on iOS platform is currently in progress.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, after reviewing the functionalities of the App, complimented Col Sai Shankar for his skill and ingenuity in developing the application.
Notably, after the Modi government banned 59 prominent Chinese mobile apps over security concerns in June, the Indian Army asked its personnel to delete 89 mobile apps from their smartphones, including Facebook, PUBG, Zoom, Instagram, POPXO, Snapchat, Tik Tok, ShareIt along with dating apps like Bumble, Couch Surfing, Coffee meets Bagel, Hinge and TrulyMadly and Tinder. The decision was taken to curtail leakage of information and to ensure the security of the classified information.