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India Bans 118 Apps, Including PUBG Mobile

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India has today banned 118 apps, including the popular game PUBG Mobile, according to Medianama. The apps were accused of being engaged in activities "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defense of India, security of state and public order" by the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

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Thus far, the Indian government has banned 224 apps this year, mainly due to implied security concerns with regards to Chinese ownership. In June, India banned 59 apps including TikTok and WeChat, and banned another 47 in July.

"The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India. The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defense 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," the Ministry said in a statement.
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The Ministry explained that bipartisan concerns were flagged up about the large number of apps, "by various public representatives, both outside and inside the Parliament of India. There has been a strong chorus in the public space to take strict action against Apps that harm India's sovereignty as well as the privacy of our citizens." On the basis of "credible" information, evidencing the functionality embedded in apps that allowed for "data harvesting practices," the apps were deemed by the Ministry to be "a severe threat to security of the State."

Concerns about rogue data harvesting practices on iOS are regarded as being of the same severity as on Android. Apple and Google will now be forced to remove the apps from their respective app stores, effective immediately.

A Parliamentary Standing Committee specifically discussed the need for a ban on PUBG Mobile in July. PUBG Mobile is owned by Chinese tech company Tencent, which was likely the reason for its inclusion in the ban. PUBG was said to be among the most popular games in India prior to today's ban. The country was also one of the largest markets for TikTok, prior to its ban in June. The extended app ban list also includes two apps that claimed to offer access to TikTok via a VPN.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: India Bans 118 Apps, Including PUBG Mobile
 
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https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/02/india-bans-118-apps-including-pubg-mobile/
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I am glad to see India taking a proactive stance on privacy / data harvesting issues. I am not a beta tester so I have not personally seen the new privacy features in iOS 14 but I am looking forward using them in the very near future. I take my privacy seriously but I feel like I am in the minority, too many people have the attitude that "I have nothing to hide" and they do not realize the risks associated with leaking even seemingly harmless personal data all over the Internet.
 
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Maybe after Apple's "notary public" stops approving malware they'll train it to stop these kinds of leaks. Honestly, what is the approval process for? It looks like it is just so they can say, "There are millions of apps available for iOS."
 
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DoctorTech said:
I am glad to see India taking a proactive stance on privacy / data harvesting issues. I am not a beta tester so I have not personally seen the new privacy features in iOS 14 but I am looking forward using them in the very near future. I take my privacy seriously but I feel like I am in the minority, too many people have the attitude that "I have nothing to hide" and they do not realize the risks associated with leaking even seemingly harmless personal data all over the Internet.
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This is not the way to do it, banning Apps is way to time-consuming for government bodies, a better way is to make laws that forbid data mining, or what I prefer, a law that says all your Data is yours, there should be a central place that you could go to to delete all your data that is mined.

It's time for the Internet to change, my data is mine, it should be possible to not share any data if you opt for that.

*This is just political, as with the states banning Apps.
 
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DoctorTech said:
I am glad to see India taking a proactive stance on privacy / data harvesting issues. I am not a beta tester so I have not personally seen the new privacy features in iOS 14 but I am looking forward using them in the very near future. I take my privacy seriously but I feel like I am in the minority, too many people have the attitude that "I have nothing to hide" and they do not realize the risks associated with leaking even seemingly harmless personal data all over the Internet.
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Banning specific apps with a vague reason is a pretty bad way to go at it. There will always be apps that will take the place of the banned ones that do the same thing. Also, since this is mainly banning Chinese apps it’s likely this order stems much more from economic protectionism and retaliation than actual concern for user data. India needs a common standard in the law like GDPR so developers are aware of a standard they need to follow.
 
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justperry said:
This is not the way to do it, banning Apps is way to time-consuming for government bodies, a better way is to make laws that forbid data mining, or what I prefer, a law that says all your Data is yours, ...
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I'd prefer that companies by law have to pay at least $10,000,- as damages and compensation for each unauthorised data collection to the person affected. For each individual case again and again every time they do it. Including cases when hiding the consent in the small print on unclear wording.
 
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now i see it said:
the "walled garden" has been a ruse.
the safety of the App Store has been a ruse.
"What happens on your phone stays on your phone" is a lie.

What else?
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It is all a lie. Steve Jobs originally said there would be no apps, because you could build rich websites. Installer.app and Cydia popped up, because people wanted apps instead of websites. After that, Apple announced they would add an App Store a year later. This was all about locking out the original app stores so Apple could make their own App Store.
 
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Nice.

Yuri Bezmenov the KGB defector in the new Call of Duty spoke about how data was being collected on Indian citizens so that in case of Soviet invasion the Red Army would know who to arrest or murder first.

That’s why spyware and data collection is a massive danger.
 
rjp1 said:
It is all a lie. Steve Jobs originally said there would be no apps, because you could build rich websites. Installer.app and Cydia popped up, because people wanted apps instead of websites. After that, Apple announced they would add an App Store a year later. This was all about locking out the original app stores so Apple could make their own App Store.
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Oh come on. You know that's not true. They never said there would be no apps or App Store. The iPhone launched with apps! But the platform did not yet support developers... that took a bit longer, because it was a brand new venture, new technology.
 
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Prima facie, to the world, this can look like a move surrounding security concerns. Subcutaneously, this is about moving citizens to local apps that will do the same what the other apps did, only for this government. Furthermore, this is about helping a certain corporate friend of the leader gain market share with apps from his stables.
 
coolfactor said:
The iPhone launched with apps! But the platform did not yet support developers
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There was nothing "yet" about it. They said, "and you can create apps, we listened to you" and then presented some ****** web-app features. There were no hints for devs being able to create real apps themseves in the future, on the contrary.
 
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