Government Clarifies After DoT Order to Make App Non-Removable on All Smartphones
New Delhi: Facing flak over its order to mobile companies to preload the Sanchar Saathi app, the government on Tuesday sought to downplay the controversy as the Union Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said mobile users who do not want to use the app can delete it from their phones. Notwithstanding the minister's assertion, tech experts raise doubt about whether the app, which critics fear could be used for "snooping", can be uninstalled or deleted.
The Opposition has termed the Sanchar Saathi app a “snooping app” to be used for surveillance of citizens, a charge that the minister has denied. According to industry sources, smartphone makers Apple and Samsung will discuss the order with the government and try to find a middle path on the directive.
Denying the Opposition's charges, Mr Scindia asserted that there was no snooping or call monitoring through the app. "It is our responsibility to make this app reach everyone. If you want to delete it, then delete it. If you don't want to use it, then don't register it. If you register it, then it will remain active. If you don't register it, then it will remain inactive," he said.
The government maintains that the app is crucial to counter "serious endangerment" to telecom cybersecurity from duplicate or spoofed IMEI numbers, which enable scams and network misuse.
Mr Scindia pointed out that there have been more than 1.5-crore downloads of the Sanchar Saathi app. So far about 2.75 crores fraudulent mobile connections have been disconnected, and roughly 20-lakh stolen phones have been traced, with about 7.5 lakh stolen phones returned to the users. Besides, approximately 21-lakh phones have been disconnected on the basis of user recognition and reporting.
The uproar erupted after the communications ministry issued directives under the provisions of the telecom cybersecurity to ensure that the Sanchar Saathi mobile application is pre-installed on all mobile handsets manufactured or imported for use in India to verify the genuineness of mobile handsets.
The order issued on November 28 says the app should be visible, functional and enabled for users in the first setup. It further says that the manufacturers must ensure the app is easily accessible during device setup, with no disabling or restriction of its features. The government order mandates completing the implementation in 90 days and submitting a report in 120 days. This order applies also to imported phones and all those smartphones already in the market.
“For all such devices that have already been manufactured and are in sales channels in India, the manufacturers and importers of mobile handsets shall make an endeavour to push the app through software updates,” the directive says.
This decision by the government is facing stiff resistance from people who feel this will be used for surveillance. The Opposition parties, led by the Congress, have described it as a snooping app and alleged that the government is turning the country into a dictatorship.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday said, “…Citizens have a right to privacy…without the government looking at everything. It is not just one thing… It is not just snooping on the telephones…they are turning this country into a dictatorship in every form… Definitely, there is a need for cyber security, but that does not mean that it gives you an excuse to go into every citizen's telephone. I don't think any citizen would be happy with that."
Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury has filed an adjournment motion notice in the Rajya Sabha on this issue, saying the circular on the Sanchar Saathi application enables pervasive surveillance and threatens to place every movement, interaction, and decision of citizens under constant watch, without adequate safeguards or parliamentary oversight.
“The Pegasus scandal proved what we feared. Phones of 100-plus Indians hacked—Opposition leaders, judges, journalists and even Union ministers were snooped on. Snooping, surveilling, scanning and peeping to confiscate, control, command and monetise citizens' rights is the hallmark of the BJP's tyrannical regime. Democracy perishes. "The dystopian era flourishes," Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge alleged.
Another Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said making anything compulsory in a democracy is troubling and asserted that the government should explain everything to the public instead of just passing an order.
AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal termed the directive a "brazen attack on individual privacy" and demanded immediate withdrawal of the "diktat", adding, “No democracy in the world has ever attempted to do so."
