Last month, India banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, WeChat, and UC Browser after tension between both nations at the border.
The country’s government is now inspecting to ban 275 more China-originated apps including popular battle royale game PlayerUnknown’s BattleGround (PUBG) and ByteDance’s music app Resso.
According to a report from the Economic Times, government officials have created a list of 275 apps that might be violating security measures and user privacy. Apart from PUBG and Resso, the list includes ecommerce app AliExpress from Alibaba and photo-sharing app ULike.
India moved to ban 59 Chinese apps after more than 20 of its soldiers were killed in a skirmish at the border with the neighboring country.
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ET’s report also notes that the government is planning to formalize the process of banning apps that pose a threat to national and user security. A set of ministries will form a law or a procedure to address such concerns in the future.
An official from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) told ET that officials will follow a due process:
There is a process involved, there is a committee in place for such ban orders. If there is such an order, then MeitY will act
However, it’s worth noting that India’s Personal Data Protection (PDP) bill is still in the draft and discussion stage. So there’s no formal process to acting on apps that might violate user privacy.
China-based apps have found great success in India’s vast internet userbase. Before its ban, TikTok had more than 200 million users in the country, while PUBG has garnered more than 50 million players in the country
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