According to sources, Indian intelligence agencies have red-flagged 52 mobile applications as a threat to the country. Most of these apps have been linked to the neighboring country China.
At least 52 mobile applications have been termed as unsafe as it extracts a large amount of data because of which the Indian intelligence agencies have advised people to block or stop using these applications. As per the sources, the list of applications that have been red-flagged and sent to the government include the video conferencing app Zoom, the short video application, TikTok, and other applications such as Shareit, Xender and UC browser.
Reportedly, a senior official in the government has said that the recommendations by the security agencies have been strongly supported by the national security council secretariat which also feels these applications could be detrimental to India’s security. The government official also said that the discussions regarding this are going on. In the discussion, the parameters and the risk attached to each of these apps will be examined.
Home Ministry Had Earlier Advised Against Zoom
Earlier this year the union home ministry had issued an advisory on the use of the video conferencing app zoom as it said it could pose a threat to national cybersecurity. However, India was not the first country to issue advisory against Zoom. The country of Taiwan has banned government agencies from using the application. Even the German foreign ministry has restricted the use of zoom in emergency situations and the United States has advised its members to switch two alternate platforms.
Over the last few weeks, there have been repeated calls on social media to uninstall certain apps that are linked to China. One of these applications is TikTok which is owned and operated by the Chinese company Bytedance. As per the government officials, there have been inputs that suggest that several of the Android and IOS apps that are developed by Chinese or launched by the Chinese companies can pose a serious threat to the national security. They have been reports that the agency has advised the security personnel about the detrimental impact these applications could have gone the data security of the country.
Source: Hindustan Times
