India bans 118 mobile Chinese apps including PUBG, Baidu, WeChat Reading

New Delhi: The ministry of information and technology, Government of India on Wednesday banned more than 100 mobile applications including the mobile gaming app PUBG, Baidu, Baidu Express Edition, Tencent Watchlist, FaceU, WeChat Reading and Tencent Weiyun, after banning 59 Chinese apps in the first round earlier this year citing concerns of data security after fresh tensions between India and China in the border area in eastern Ladakh.

The banned mobile applications are prejudicial to the sovereignty, integrity, defence of India and public order, the ministry said.

“The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence 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 statement said.

The ministry of electronics and information technology received several complaints from various sources, including reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on the Android and iOS platforms. The complaints alleged stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which possibly had locations outside India.

The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, under the Ministry of Home Affairs also sent a recommendation for blocking these controversial apps. In the public domain too, there has been a strong demand for some time to take strict action against mobile applications that harm India’s sovereignty as well as the privacy of citizens.