Last week, Indian intelligence agencies have suggested the government to ban 52 Chinese apps for security reasons. Now the government has taken an action and announced a ban on 59 Chinese Apps including UC Browser, Shareit and TikTok, and more.
The PIB press release claims that the move has been taken to “safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users. This decision is a targeted move to ensure the safety and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace.”
The list of apps include some of the popular apps like Shareit, TikTok, Shein, Club Factory, Asus Browser, ES File explore, Viva Video, Clean Master, Helo, Like and more.
TikTok is one of the most popular apps in India and it recently crossed 2 billion downloads mark. The app has more than 611 million downloads in India. But the app has been accused of acquiring a lot of user data without permission. Recently, it was also caught accessing phones’ clipboard data by iOS 14.
Also see: Popular Chinese apps and their alternatives
Enforcement of ban is still unclear. It is also not clear if the apps will be just banned on app stores or will stop working completely in India. Some of the apps are stock apps that come with devices. It will be difficult to remove those apps. Not sure how the ban on these apps will work.
