Govt takes U turn on Sanchar Saathi App

New Delhi: The government on Wednesday takes U-turn on order mandating pre-installation of the Sanchar Saathi cyber security app on smartphones sold in the country.

The order to manufacturers – including American technology giant Apple, which was reportedly prepping a legal challenge – was withdrawn because the “the number of users who have downloaded the app (over six lakh in 24 hours and 1.4 crore users overall) has been increasing rapidly”.

The mandate to pre-install “was meant to accelerate this process”.

The statement also confirmed what Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said yesterday and repeated in Parliament this morning – the app can be deleted.

“The government, with an intent to provide access to cyber security to all citizens, mandated pre-installation of Sanchar Saathi app on all smartphones. The app is secure and meant to help citizens from bad actors in the cyber world. There is no other function other than protecting users… and they can remove the app…”

The rollback followed two days of protests over concerns the pre-installation directive violates privacy rights and that the app itself could be used to spy on people, an echo of the Pegasus spyware scandal.