Chinese apps will continue to be scrutinized by the Indian govt. A new report suggests the govt is not letting its guard down even after banning 54 apps from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. These apps were allegedly trying to misuse data of Indian citizens. One of the biggest casualties of the ban was Garena Free Fire, which is a popular battle royale game in India.
A new report confirms that India will continue to keep a close eye on the app stores for apps that misbehave. A senior govt official told ET Tech, that it will continue to scrutinize applications that have access to data of Indian users, especially through illegal means.
According to the official, these Chinese applications change their names and sometimes even hosts in order to get access to personal data of citizens. The official claimed that data was being re-routed in order to evade the scrutiny. Additionally, the ownerships are also being changed and data being hosted by countries such as Singapore and Hongkong. Free Fire’s parent company Sea Ltd, is also headquartered in Singapore.
The data is ultimately being routed to Chinese servers, according to the official quoted in the report. That is why the govt banned these 54 apps, according to the report.
The Indian govt banned 54 applications on Monday. The state claimed they were a threat to national security. Many apps in the list were re-branded versions of the applications that were banned in the first phase, back in 2020.
The very first ban followed the escalation between India and China in the Galwan valley. In June 2020, the Indian govt announced a ban on 59 Chinese applications. This included the wildly popular TikTok and UC Browser.
The second round of bans were announced in September 2020. This list included one of the biggest names in mobile gaming: PUBG Mobile. Free Fire was to gain from that move as it managed to avoid being on that list. 224 app bans later, Free Fire also gets the axe. However, there’s another version of the game called Free Fire Max which is still available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
The post After latest Chinese app ban, Indian govt to continue scrutinizing applications: Report appeared first on BGR India.
