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Apple to Resist India's Order to Preload Government App on iPhones

ForkHandles said:
My money is on India!

Foreign companies are only allowed into India’s markets by permission given by the government.

There are no super markets for example. No 7-11 network that sells cheap and puts the tens of millions of sole traders out of business.

Apple has to open a factory to be able to operate within the country. The Indian government needs balance in order to grant permissions.

I’d be surprised if Apple continued to have access whilst resisting the governments efforts to make online trade more secure.

Obviously Apple has to resist, the demands are at the very least contentious. That said I think the Indians have the leverage.
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Apple's whole business model around iDevices is around personal security and privacy - they don't need any "help" from the Indian government. Contrary to what that telecom manager claims, this is nothing but a backdoor for the government to start tracking and snooping on its citizens. Ask yourself: if that app is so helpful to people, wouldn't they cheerfully install it on their own? Just put it on the App Store and start a marketing campaign to let citizens know about this great new app.

I think whoever wins the public's support will win this one. If the public doesn't care, then the Indian government might play hardball - and Apple will either fold or, if it thinks it can afford to, pull out of India (not very likely). But if the public does care that the government is snooping on them, India will quietly soften or withdraw its demands. It seems like the latter is already happening - the telecom minister said that users can 'deactivate at any time'. When I first read about this demand, it seemed like this app would always run, always get updated, and should not be removable. The minister didn't say it'll be removable, but de-activating seems similar (depending on whether de-activation is iOS enforced or just "Promised" by the app itself).
 
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twolf2919 said:
Apple's whole business model around iDevices is around personal security and privacy - they don't need any "help" from the Indian government. Contrary to what that telecom manager claims, this is nothing but a backdoor for the government to start tracking and snooping on its citizens.
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No backdoor to three-letter agencies in the US? Can you guarantee that? ;)
 
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chmania said:
Customers?
They are Indian, and that's India, not the US.
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Indian citizens deserve privacy in their devices. And Apple certainly has more power than the average Indian citizen to push back on this law.

chmania said:
Have you? ;)
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Yep. But you don’t have take my word for it; here’s an Indian publication’s take:

www.thehindu.com

Why Sanchar Saathi is a state-owned surveillance app that Indian users don’t need

The Indian government’s decision to mandate the Sanchar Saathi application on every smartphone sold or activated in the country marks a significant and worrisome shift
www.thehindu.com www.thehindu.com
 
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Oblivious.Robot said:
I gotta be with Apple on this one, bugger off with that nonsense.

The scam call centres that operate only do so with the full political, police and judicial backing, and unless something changes massively everything else is just performative bs.

I get so many scam and spam calls that I personally have kept "silence unknown callers" as the default mode on my iPhone with the ringer and all calls allowed option only when I'm truly expecting a new call.
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Same. Silence unknown callers has been enabled for years at this point. If its not a scam they can leave a message
 
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chmania said:
Well, there's nothing anyone can do about that, as that's a government order. India is a large country!
The BJP has 303 seats out of 542, which is 56%. The next largest party has only 52 seats.


Which is practically more than twice the population of the US.
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Looks like you are stuck in 2019. They won 240 odd Seats in the last elections and are in are currently in a coalition government.
 
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chmania said:
No backdoor to three-letter agencies in the US? Can you guarantee that? ;)
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Again, Apple's whole business model is around assuring customers of their privacy and security. They've run ads and made public statements about them not having access to our private data, never mind not selling it. If it ever came to light that they lied, Apple would be sued out of existence.

For some additional historical perspective, Apple refused to provide access to the FBI (one of those "three-letter" agencies) in a couple well-documented/reported cases. More recently, they also refused a secret demand by the British security agency to provide access to iCloud data.

And every year Apple adds more security measures. Most recently, you can push a couple buttons on your iPhone so that Apple doesn't even have access to your iCloud data - it's only accessible by using an on-device private key. So the next time a government asks, Apple can assert that it really can't.

So, while I can't guarantee anything, I'm pretty darn confident there are no back doors to any US or other countries' agencies.
 
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chmania said:
Not really. Remember how India became one of the biggest pharmaceutical manufacturers? Or how it resisted importing foreign-made cars for years? If needed, India can become (at least the second) largest phone manufacturer in the world. It can produce its own mobile phones, with full government backing, just like it did with medicine. India's ruling party can effectively win any legislation and withstand any foreign political pressure. India has evolved!
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And now our de-fanged FDA is starting to see leaks of the poor manufacturing, non-existent sanitary requirements that many of those Indian manufacturers are guilty of in the products they manufacture. But for far too long, our FDA turned a blind-eye to the quality reports and those issues were swept under the rug.

Don’t fool yourselves; India sold the pharmaceutical companies a real “bill of goods” by saying their Indian-based plants would turn out drugs that are as safe as plants in much more developed countries. Just continue to watch the news about defective or unsanitary drugs being shipped around the world.
 
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twolf2919 said:
Apple's whole business model around iDevices is around personal security and privacy
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Apple’s business model is based on hardware sales augmented by software and services artificially limited to their walled garden. The privacy aspect is nice but let’s not fool ourselves that’s the main driver. Most Apple customers happily give their precious data to Facebook and Google.
 
I'm glad to see them pushing back here, but I would have liked to see them do that domestically with the ICEblock ridiculousness, as well as not so enthusiastically show up at every opportunity to suck up to the current US administration.

In the long run, this continues to feel like an uphill battle for Apple.

"this" = the battle against governing bodies overall
 
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"In response to the criticism, India's telecom minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia on Tuesday said the app was "completely optional," adding that users can choose to activate it and can "easily delete it from their phone at any time."

If it's optional, they can choose to install on their device! Why does it need to be manufacturer installed?
 
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