Amid growing tensions between India and China, the Indian government has just banned another 118 mobile applications with links to China, adding to the 59 mobile applications it already banned last June, including TikTok and WeChat.
On the new list of mobile applications banned in India, PUBG Mobile resonates strongly due to its popularity along with PUBG Mobile Lite, which has more than 40 million active users in India, developed by Tencent Games, and will now see its popularity in India decline, while the desktop version, developed by a South Korean company, will not.
These 118 applications will no longer be available in Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store over the next few days. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology says it has had evidence that these applications were involved in activities “detrimental to the sovereignty and integrity of India, defense of India, state security and public order.
They clarify that these applications were “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting user data in an unauthorized manner to servers”, in reference to the transmission of information to servers outside India.
Among the 118 mobile applications now banned are also antivirus solutions, web browsers, audio and video players, image editors, photo galleries, video call solutions, file cleaners, and more.
These prohibitions will go so far that users will also not be able to access them even when using VPN solutions.
In addition, the Indian government is also considering requiring companies to obtain explicit permission from users before using their personal data, in addition to being required to provide the government with the identities of users on social networks if necessary.