New Delhi: Amid fresh tension over China's provocation in Ladakh, the government of India has banned 118 Chinese apps including widely popular mobile game PUBG.
The move was in the interest of India's sovereignty and integrity, defence and security, said Ministry of Electronics and IT in a statement. Till now India has banned over 200 Chinese apps.
According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the mobile game has been banned along with the other apps under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, on grounds that "they are engaged in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state and public order."
Among the banned apps, the gaming app PUBG has over 30 million active users in India and over 100 million downloads on play store.
"This decision is a targeted move to ensure safety, security and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace," the statement said.
This move, it said, would safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users.
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The ministry said that it had received many complaints about the misuse of some mobile apps on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting user data to servers outside India.
"The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures," said the statement.
Since June, this is the third time when the government of India has banned Chinese apps.
In June, India banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, CamScanner etc and in July 47 more apps which were clones of apps banned in July were restricted to use in India.
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As per sources, a list of 250 apps was made by the central government after the first ban including gaming apps.
Later Ministry of Electronics and IT's cyberlaw and e-security dept sent an e-mail to these companies and had warned that if any listed app is still available or operating, it should be taken as an offence under IT Act.
Ban came few hours before the address of Union Minister for Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad at the US-India Strategic Partnership Summit where he will share achievements, potentials and future roadmap for India's digital growth with leading industry leaders of India and USA.
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