The government on February 14 banned 54 more Chinese apps, including several from Tencent and Alibaba groups, citing security threat, taking to 224 the number of such applications that India has banned over the last few years.
The new banned 54 apps, which include Tencent Xriver, Onmyoji Chess and Viva Video Editor, pose a threat to India’s security, news agency ANI reported. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) issued the order under Section 69a of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Beauty Camera: Sweet Selfie HD, Beauty Camera - Selfie Camera, Equalizer & Bass Booster, CamCard for SalesForce Ent, Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite, Onmyoji Arena, AppLock and Dual Space Lite are among the apps taken down from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
A senior official told The Economic Times that many of the previously-banned Chinese apps were available for download in India under a different name.
Some of the apps were also “being hosted out of countries like Hong Kong or Singapore, but the data was ultimately going to servers in Chinese destinations”, the official added.
The government banned 59 Chinese apps first in June 2020, citing sovereignty and integrity of India, defence, security of state and public order as reasons for the ban. More apps were added to the list over the next few months.
Popular e-Sports mobile game PUBG Mobile, aka PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, was also banned in India alongside the likes of TikTok and Ali Express.
While PUBG was developed by Krafton, Tencent’s take in the game led to its ban in India. Krafton later relaunched PUBG as BGMI (Battlegrounds Mobile India) with the assurance to store data locally and adhere to the Indian government laws for data security.
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