Govt to keep close eye on Chinese origin apps

This came a day after it was revealed that 54 such apps, including many from the stables of large Chinese technology companies such as Alibaba, Tencent and gaming firm NetEase,
had been banned in the fifth and latest crackdown by the authorities.

These include a host of games including Garena Free Fire; Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite; Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade; Conquer Online and Twilight Pioneers, officials told ET.

“Chinese apps are constantly changing names or hosts to access sensitive data of Indians. The government will keep scanning them from time to time,” an official told ET, asking not to be named.

ET reported on Monday that the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) had ordered the latest ban, terming the apps a “threat to national security”.

In a statement issued on Monday, a spokesperson for Google said: “On receipt of the interim order passed under Section 69A of the IT Act, following established process, we have notified the affected developers and have temporarily blocked access to the apps that remained available on the Play Store in India.”

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In September 2020, the government had banned the hugely popular PUBG Mobile, owned by Tencent. This fuelled the growth of Garena Free Fire in India, which has now been banned as well. India is one of the largest markets for the Free Fire game globally.

The latest ban also includes messaging and dating apps such as CuteU: Match With The World, CuteU Pro and FunChat Meet People Around You. The list also has video-based social media platforms such as SmallWorld, FancyU, MoonChat and RealU.

Photo enhancing and editing apps such as Sweet Selfie HD and Beauty Camera, apart from audio editing app Equalizer & Bass Booster, business card scanning app CamCard, video editing app Viva Video Editor, lock service app AppLock, and interface cloning app Dual Space Lite, are also on the list.

A number of Chinese apps banned in the latest round are “rebranded or rechristened avatars” of apps that have been banned in the country since 2020, officials said.

They added that the government had to take a series of banning actions since it is easy for the apps to spring up again through similar or different names.

They have also been changing ownership and are being hosted out of countries such as Singapore or Hong Kong to evade the Indian government’s eye.

“The data of Indians was, however, being ultimately routed to Chinese servers, which is why these apps have been banned,” an official told ET.

This latest round of bans of Chinese apps by the government follows continuing border tensions with China which started in mid-2020.

In June 2020, the government blocked 59 apps including hugely popular ones such as TikTok, Shareit, UC Browser and WeChat. Since then, the government has banned around 224 Chinese apps in total.

MeitY issued the latest ban on the grounds that these apps were transferring sensitive data of Indians to servers in foreign countries such as China.