India demands smartphone makers install a government app on every handset

India’s government has issued a directive that requires all smartphone manufacturers to install a government app on every handset in the country and has given them 90 days to get the job done – and to ensure users can’t remove the code. The app is called “Sanchar Saathi” and is a product of India’s Department of …

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Indians can make sure that the only scams and spams are government approved!

Surprised the orange one hasn't decided to try to force people to install Fox News on all government cell phones.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Fox. He'd insist on his contronym, "Truth Social".

[BebopWeBop]

And

Other countries look on excitedly, antisipating a welcome mission creep.

[find users who cut cat tail]

Re: And

People in several of those countries still think a plain piece of paper or plastic (i.e. an id) somewhere at the bottom of their backpack is ‘government spying on them’. It will be a rough awakening.

[DS999]

Never gonna happen

Apple doesn't do preinstalled apps at all, and there are way too many Android OEMs for India's government to enforce this on all of them.

Plus it is a bad idea having a required government app (that no doubt you could not remove) that had the power to disable your phone at the government's whim. Corruption in the government causing widespread citizen protests? No problem, just blanket disable phones connected to towers in the protest area (with some whitelisting for police and government officials) and now people can't record video of the head bashings to follow.

I could see their conversation with Apple, where they say they want this and Apple asks if they want those Foxconn plants making a fifth of the world's iPhones to move to another country. If they give an inch on this every country will demand special apps, and those who openly take bribes like Trump would end up with iPhones sold in the US shipping with Truth Social, X, Facebook, Amazon, Tik Tok, and a big steaming pile of cryptocurrency trading apps.

[Headley_Grange]

Re: Never gonna happen

I hope you're right but India's a big market. According to other press, Apple has 4.5% of 735 million phones - that's 33m phones or about 4 years of UK sales*. The prevailing view is that the phone makers will try to cut a deal to nudge people to install it when they set the phone up.

Russia has mandated Max pre-installs since September but I can't find a definitive confirmation that Apple havs complied - hopefully someone will come along who knows.

I don't think it could happen in the US because of their free-speech laws (as currently interpreted by the Supreme Court, of course) but I'm not an expert in the constitution and I'm sure someone more knowledgable will correct me if I'm wrong.

*I know that these are not strictly comparable but I really ought to do a bit of work this morning so haven't got time to dig for more data.

[WolfFan]

Re: Never gonna happen

Apple has already said that they won't be installing the app. https://www.macworld.com/article/2997281/apple-refuses-to-pre-install-government-app-on-iphones-in-india.html

[DS999]

Re: Never gonna happen

Unless/until the Supreme Court takes away Trump's unconstitutional tariff stick all he has to do is threaten Apple with a 200% tariff on importing iPhones and they'd be left with no choice but to knuckle under to him until the stroke or heart attack from the poor diagnosis he's hiding finally takes him out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Never gonna happen

I’m still waiting on Apple lifting the prohibition on ADP in the UK since the Government lost the ban on in court case.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Never gonna happen

Down-voted. Hi Peter Kyle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Never gonna happen

Downvoted by Peter Kyle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Never gonna happen

>> since the Government lost the ban on in court case.

Did they? I missed that. Wasn't bothered about having ADP before but obviously ever since the UK Gov banned it, I want it!

[ChoHag]

> to empower mobile subscribers

Lies. If it was to the users' benefit there would be no need to force it to be installed or block its removal.

[seven of five]

"I'll make you love me, wether you like it or not"?

and some say romance is dead

[nobody who matters]

From what is given in the article, this doesn't actually 'empower' mobile users to report or secure anything much that they couldn't already do by other easy to use means.

So what else does this app do that they are being careful not to tell anyone about? Yes, I think we all know the answer to that! :(

[Tron]

India is the next China.

And we'll be getting something similar soon.

[may_i]

Spyware

I'm sure India's government app is nothing more than spyware.

[ComicalEngineer]

Hello this is Gupta from the government ...

or the AI version:

It looks like you're making a scam phone call to the UK, would you like help with that?

Cynical? Moi?

[DrewPH]

Hello this is Gupta from the government...

It looks like you're making a scam phone call to the UK, we'll help with that if you cut us in on the profit.

[Reginald O.]

Do you trust ME or your LYIN' eyes?

I suppose it comes down to is: do most people in India trust their government to do the right thing?

Also, to what extent can the law be enforced?

From where I sit, it seems like the law may be a requirement for the usual government back door and key logger for mass surveillance, but what do I know?

[WolfFan]

Re: Do you trust ME or your LYIN' eyes?

The people in India haven't trusted their government(s) since the days of the Mughals. Possibly earlier.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw hell no....

Based on the "quality" of the other government apps and their comically bad Visa application website, I would not want this anywhere near my devices.....An app that has the power to wipe my device....written by Indian public sector developers....what could possibly go wrong?

I eagerly await the "all indian smartphones pwned by badly written government app" headline when someone cracks this and sends a wipe command to everyone.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Coming soon to the UK

UK power-hungry cops: Show me your government app.

[Colin Bull 1]

Worst of 2 evils

In the UK there is a complete lack of controls or enforcement of communications.

The supine telecomms regulatoriis in thrall to the telecomms industry. VOIP has been coming for over 20 years and have just tested fall back for disadvaged groups, a year after BT was supposed to phase out all landlines.

The no way of reporting attempted frauds, only actual frauds after the horse has bolted. Action fraud is only interested in gathering staticists NOT reduceing the scams and frauds.

Oftcom will wait until hundreds of thousands or millions of offences have happened before getting off the fat arses to prosecute perpetrators.

If there was a iota of interest the authorities COULD enagage and stop and discourage the bad guys but they have not got any clue about the miserly these calls are making.

[Stoic Skeptic]

What could possibly go wrong?

[Ken Hagan]

Dunno. Let's grab some popcorn, sit back, and find out.

[WolfFan]

Apple says no

https://www.macworld.com/article/2997281/apple-refuses-to-pre-install-government-app-on-iphones-in-india.html

[Kurgan]

1984 was just 45-ish years wrong.

So it looks like 1984 is indeed around 2030, with every government scrambling to use AI to tap into every form of communication.

[Raj]

If the Indian government wants something to happen in this domain, it will. It may not happen the way they initially ask, but if it's important enough, it will - ESPECIALLY around mobile and digital life. The reason is simple - Indian life revolves around mobile usage today.

If there's one thing this government has repeatedly shown, it is the ability to bring about massive changes at scale. There are almost 800 million smartphones in use, which is almost the whole population in the 15-65 age group. All 1.4 billion citizens now have a unique national ID. 560 million bank accounts have been opened linked to those IDs, directly transferring cash benefits to the poor and skipping the middleman.

The entire trinity of capabilities is called JAM actually - JanDhan (the bank accounts), Adhaar (the ID) and Mobile. The government wants to ensure that spoofing and problems associated with the M part are fixed, and it WILL happen.

This is an entire social welfare system built upon the JAM construct, and of course it's also a vote winner. You can get around the country cashless with the UPI system which runs on mobile. The government just has to mandate one more app to ensure all these work, and everyone will just install it.

Looking at India through the lens of western use cases doesn't really help with anything around this topic. I've not seen a single reference to JAM in any western article about this app. That's an immediate red flag that the story has no substance and is just low grade ragebait for whoever it's meant to provoke. It can't be Indians because nobody cares.

[Raj]

Gonna jappen

If the Indian government wants something to happen in this domain, it will. It may not happen the way they initially ask, but if it's important enough, it will - ESPECIALLY around mobile and digital life. The reason is simple - Indian life revolves around mobile usage today.

If there's one thing this government has repeatedly shown, it is the ability to bring about massive changes at scale. There are almost 800 million smartphones in use, which is almost the whole population in the 15-65 age group. All 1.4 billion citizens now have a unique national ID. 560 million bank accounts have been opened linked to those IDs, directly transferring cash benefits to the poor and skipping the middleman.

The entire trinity of capabilities is called JAM actually - JanDhan (the bank accounts), Adhaar (the ID) and Mobile. The government wants to ensure that spoofing and problems associated with the M part are fixed, and it WILL happen.

This is an entire social welfare system built upon the JAM construct, and of course it's also a vote winner. You can get around the country cashless with the UPI system which runs on mobile. The government just has to mandate one more app to ensure all these work, and everyone will just install it.

Looking at India through the lens of western use cases doesn't really help with anything around this topic. I've not seen a single reference to JAM in any western article about this app. That's an immediate red flag that the story has no substance and is just low grade ragebait for whoever it's meant to provoke. It can't be Indians because nobody cares.