188 Chinese apps including PUBG banned in India - A drastic decision taken by the Ministry of Electronics of India

After the border disputes with the Chinese army, the Government of India has already banned 59 apps of Chinese origin earlier. Now the Ministry of Electronics (MI) has taken yet another drastic step to ban around 188 Chinese apps which also includes the most popular game PUBG. These Chinese apps will be banned or blocked on the Google Play Store as these apps are posing a threat to the integrity of the country.

As per the statement from the govt, it is said that these apps will be banned under section 69A of the Information Technology Act and as issued in public order. According to the Ministry of Electronics, these Chinese origin mobile apps were engaged in certain illicit activities and were endangering the sovereignty, integrity, its defence system, and the security of the states.

Apart from PUBG other banned apps include Ludo world, Chess Rush, Rise of Kingdoms, Dank tanks, We Chat reading, We Chat work, Zakzak Pro, Baidu Express, Gallery Vault, Applock, Malay social dating, Lamour, and several others to be counted. These apps were available on both Google Play Store (for Android devices) and Appstore (for iPhones and iPads) and had started attracting or were popular among most of the younger generation in India.

According to the Ministry of Electronics, these Chinese apps were malicious and the Government of India has received many complaints such as stealing and transmitting user’s data in an unauthorized manner. The apps were able to steal the user data because their servers were located outside the country and were under the control of the Chinese developers.

Talking about PUBG, it was one of the most popular and world’s most lucrative gaming apps played on mobile devices and also had the largest subscriber base as well. Among all the banned Chinese apps PUBG had a huge fan following with over 50 million active players only from India alone. As per the reports published by the gaming critics, PUBG was able to clock around 13 million users on a daily basis. Banning these popular apps in the country will result in a huge impact on the Chinese app market and will erode the valuation of the Chinese app-building companies.

According to technology experts, still after banning the apps from Google PlayStore or App Store, users may even still download their unofficial versions from the web which is also a security concern. As of now, the Chinese origin apps are blocked from the ISP level, meaning that the govt of India has asked the Internet Service providers to block access to these apps with immediate effect. Concerning the online data theft security, 59 Chinese apps were already banned in June this year.

However, there is nothing to be worried about as there are several alternative apps in the market that can be used to replace these Chinese counterparts. Apart from considering harm to India’s sovereignty, even in the public domain, there has been a strong demand for quite a time now that strict action was expected to protect the privacy of the Indian citizens. This drastic move or decision by the central government of India will certainly help in safeguarding the interests of millions of mobile users in the country.

With escalating tension across the borders of both the countries, as of now it cannot be estimated how the ban will prove to be fruitful in the future in terms of protecting the privacy of the Indian citizens. However, the most important thing to be considered is that by banning these Chinese apps the data compilation and mining of user data from servers located outside India can be put to an end. It is likely that the ban will certainly help in protecting confidential user information which will also help in protecting the sovereignty and integrity of India as well.