India bans another 118 ‘Chinese’ apps, including PUBG

Update on September 3: In response to the Indian government banning 118 ‘Chinese’ apps, the Chinese Embassy in India on Thursday said that the ban not only harms the “legitimate rights and interests” of Chinese investors, but also harms the interests of Indian consumers and the “investment environment”. Read more about it here.

Earlier on September 2: India on Wednesday banned 118 more apps, including popular gaming app PUBG, for allegedly being engaged in activities which are “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”. The IT Ministry said that the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre and Home Ministry have sent an “exhaustive recommendation” for blocking these “malicious apps”. So far, the government has banned a total of 224 ‘Chinese’ apps. On June 29, the government had banned 59 apps including TikTok, and WeChat, and followed that up by banning 47 more apps in July. The blocking order was issued under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. The development comes just days after India and China troops were involved in a fresh face-off at the border.

“The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India. 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 IT Ministry said in a statement.

The Ministry said that bipartisan concerns were flagged against the blocked apps, “flagged by various public representatives, both outside and inside the Parliament of India. There has been a strong chorus in the public space to take strict action against Apps that harm India’s sovereignty as well as the privacy of our citizens”. “On the basis of these and upon receiving of recent credible inputs that information posted, permissions sought, functionality embedded as well as data harvesting practices of above stated Apps raise serious concerns that these Apps collect and share data in surreptitious manner and compromise personal data and information of users that can have a severe threat to security of the State,” it added.

Banning PUBG was brought up in a Parliamentary panel meet

When the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by Congress’ Shashi Tharoor, had met in person on July 14, BJP’s Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma had proposed that PUBG should be banned given its affect on the youth. Other BJP MPs present at the meeting, including Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and Tejasvi Surya had voiced their support for the move.

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Local traders’ body welcomes ban

Traders collective the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), welcomed the ban and in a statement to MediaNama said was “a major milestone step against misdeeds of China and will certainly boost the morale of the country”. Praveen Khandelwal, CAIT’s secretary general said that banning more Chinese Apps other than 59 already banned Chinese apps was all the more necessary as these Apps were always a threat to Country’s safety, security and sovereignty as also for the protection of individual data these apps were accruing through their usages. He also said that apps like PUBG were spoiling the next generation as more and more people of India were consuming their more time on PUBG and other Apps.

CAIT had recently written to the Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal to investigate Chinese investments into 141 Indian start-ups including Flipkart, Paytm, Ola, Swiggy, Zomato, Byju’s, Udaan, Practo, ShareChat, Oyo Rooms, DailyHunt, MX Player, GOQii, Quikr, MyGate and Hike.

A list of the 118 banned apps

1. APUS Launcher Pro- Theme, Live Wallpapers, Smart
2. APUS Launcher -Theme, Call Show, Wallpaper, HideApps
3. APUS Security -Antivirus, Phone security, Cleaner
4. APUS Turbo Cleaner 2020- Junk Cleaner, Anti-Virus
5. APUS Flashlight-Free & Bright
6. Cut Cut – Cut Out & Photo Background Editor
7. Baidu
8. Baidu Express Edition
9. FaceU – Inspire your Beauty
10. ShareSave by Xiaomi: Latest gadgets, amazing deals
11. CamCard – Business Card Reader
12. CamCard Business
13. CamCard for Salesforce
14. CamOCR
15. InNote
16. VooV Meeting – Tencent Video Conferencing
17. Super Clean – Master of Cleaner, Phone Booster
18. WeChat reading
19. Government WeChat
20. Small Q brush
21. Tencent Weiyun
22. Pitu
23. WeChat Work
24. Cyber Hunter
25. Cyber Hunter Lite
26. Knives Out-No rules, just fight!
27. Super Mecha Champions
28. LifeAfter
29. Dawn of Isles
30. Ludo World-Ludo Superstar
31. Chess Rush
32. PUBG MOBILE Nordic Map: Livik
33. PUBG MOBILE LITE
34. Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade
35. Art of Conquest: Dark Horizon
36. Dank Tanks
37. Warpath
38. Game of Sultans
39. Gallery Vault – Hide Pictures And Videos
40. Smart AppLock (App Protect)
41. Message Lock (SMS Lock)-Gallery Vault Developer Team
42. Hide App-Hide Application Icon
43. AppLock
44. AppLock Lite
45. Dual Space – Multiple Accounts & App Cloner
46. ZAKZAK Pro – Live chat & video chat online
47. ZAKZAK LIVE: live-streaming & video chat app
48. Music – Mp3 Player
49. Music Player – Audio Player & 10 Bands Equalizer
50. HD Camera Selfie Beauty Camera
51. Cleaner – Phone Booster
52. Web Browser & Fast Explorer
53. Video Player All Format for Android
54. Photo Gallery HD & Editor
55. Photo Gallery & Album
56. Music Player – Bass Booster – Free Download
57. HD Camera – Beauty Cam with Filters & Panorama
58. HD Camera Pro & Selfie Camera
59. Music Player – MP3 Player & 10 Bands Equalizer
60. Gallery HD
61. Web Browser – Fast, Privacy & Light Web Explorer
62. Web Browser – Secure Explorer
63. Music player – Audio Player
64. Video Player – All Format HD Video Player
65. Lamour Love All Over The World
66. Amour- video chat & call all over the world.
67. MV Master – Make Your Status Video & Community
68. MV Master – Best Video Maker & Photo Video Editor
69. APUS Message Center-Intelligent management
70. LivU Meet new people & Video chat with strangers
71. Carrom Friends : Carrom Board & Pool Game-
72. Ludo All Star- Play Online Ludo Game & Board Games
73. Bike Racing : Moto Traffic Rider Bike Racing Games
74. Rangers Of Oblivion : Online Action MMO RPG Game
75. Z Camera – Photo Editor, Beauty Selfie, Collage
76. GO SMS Pro – Messenger, Free Themes, Emoji
77. U-Dictionary: Oxford Dictionary Free Now Translate
78. Ulike – Define your selfie in trendy style
79. Tantan – Date For Real
80. MICO Chat: New Friends Banaen aur Live Chat karen
81. Kitty Live – Live Streaming & Video Live Chat
82. Malay Social Dating App to Date & Meet Singles
83. Alipay
84. AlipayHK
85. Mobile Taobao
86. Youku
87. Road of Kings- Endless Glory
88. Sina News
89. Netease News
90. Penguin FM
91. Murderous Pursuits
92. Tencent Watchlist (Tencent Technology
93. Learn Chinese AI-Super Chinese
94. HUYA LIVE – Game Live Stream
95. Little Q Album
96. Fighting Landlords – Free and happy Fighting Landlords
97. Hi Meitu
98. Mobile Legends: Pocket
99. VPN for TikTok
100. VPN for TikTok
101. Penguin E-sports Live assistant
102. Buy Cars-offer everything you need, special offers and low prices
103. iPick
104. Beauty Camera Plus – Sweet Camera & Face Selfie
105. Parallel Space Lite – Dual App
106. “Chief Almighty: First Thunder BC
107. MARVEL Super War NetEase Games
108. AFK Arena
109. Creative Destruction NetEase Games
110. Crusaders of Light NetEase Games
111. Mafia City Yotta Games
112. Onmyoji NetEase Games
113. Ride Out Heroes NetEase Games
114. Yimeng Jianghu-Chu Liuxiang has been fully upgraded
115. Legend: Rising Empire NetEase Games
116. Arena of Valor: 5v5 Arena Games
117. Soul Hunters
118. Rules of Survival

Here’s a breakdown of the banned apps by developers:

Ok, so here is quick chart of Bandemic2 – Number of Apps by Developer.

There were some I couldn’t find – attributed to ‘?’. pic.twitter.com/CtBhKDtv6r

— Prateek Waghre (@prateekwaghre) September 2, 2020

Aditi Agrawal helped with the reporting from New Delhi.

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This is a developing story…