India banned many Chinese apps due to security threat

The central government has ordered to ban 54 apps related to China. These apps include Garena Free Fire, Tencent’s Xriver and NetEase’s Onmyoji Arena. After border tensions and clashes with China about two years ago, the government has blocked about 300 apps.

Google told Tech News by Careers Ready that following the government order, it has “temporarily blocked” access to these apps from the Play Store. A statement issued by the government said, “These 54 apps had allegedly obtained critical permissions and were collecting sensitive data of users. This data was being misused and stored on servers located abroad.” There are serious apprehensions about some of these apps because they can carry out activities like spying and surveillance through cameras and mics.” In banned apps Garena The game Free Fire can be said to be the most popular. his app Store It has 1,84,700 ratings and more than 10 crore downloads on Play Store.

To implement the ban, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has ordered Google and Apple to block access to the apps. A Google spokesperson told Tech News by Careers Ready in a statement, “After receiving the order under Section 69A of the IT Act, we have informed the affected developers and these apps have been temporarily blocked. ” No comment has been received from Apple regarding this. However, there is no access to banned apps on the App Store in the country. Under Section 69A of the IT Act, the government has the power to block access to content through computing devices.

This is not the first time that the government has banned China-related apps in the country. Many apps including TikTok, ShareIt, UC Browser and WeChat were banned about two years ago following border tensions with China. PUBG Mobile app was also included in these. Due to this, Chinese companies associated with these apps suffered losses. These companies had also reduced the number of their employees in India.