A non-removable government app may hinder a person\u2019s right to choose, may conflict with India\u2019s newly-minted data-privacy regime, and impose onerous compliance requirements, the executives said on condition of anonymity since their companies were still evaluating the government order.<\/p>\n
On 28 November, the department of telecommunications (DoT) under the ministry of communications issued a notification to companies that sell mobile phones in India to mandatorily pre-install Sanchar Saathi on all new phones, and use software updates to load them on phones that are already in use.<\/p>\n
Companies were given 90 days to comply and 120 days to file a compliance report, and asked to ensure that the app<\/a> cannot be disabled or uninstalled at any point. Mint has seen a copy of the notification.<\/p>\n The DoT reinforced its message with a post on social media platform X on Monday evening.<\/p>\n To be sure, India has about 750-800 million smartphone users, and just over 150 million smartphones are sold in India every year, as per IDC.<\/p>\n Two senior executives at electronics companies, who were privy to the notifications directly, said DoT\u2019s notification was served to reduce the misuse of mobile phones in various scams.<\/p>\n \u201cThe notification clearly states that Sanchar Saathi must be preinstalled in all mobile phones<\/a> in order to make it easier for the Centre to track nefarious activities,” the first of the two executives said.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir idea is that if a smartphone\u2019s IMEI (international mobile equipment identity) number is blacklisted on Sanchar Saathi, having the latter preinstalled on all phones will immediately block those numbers and narrow the window of devices that scammers can use,” this executive added.<\/p>\n Phone brands and industry bodies alike are set to push back against the notification.<\/p>\n A person close to developments at Apple said that the company \u201cmay file representations to the ministry, since Apple has never had a history of giving in to side-loading and pre-loading government-backed applications that may lead to surveillance<\/a>“.<\/p>\n Executives close to Google and Samsung, too, said they were actively evaluating the order. \u201cIt seems like a bit of an odd incident, because such broad rules typically go through a round of industry consultation to address key questions. There were no consultations held with us on this note,” one of the executives said.<\/p>\n Questions sent to Apple, Google, Samsung and Xiaomi remained unanswered till press time.<\/p>\n What experts say<\/p>\n \u201cMandating non-deletable installation appears disproportionate and ineffective,” said Sumeysh Srivastava, partner at policy consulting firm The Quantum Hub. \u201cThe app can’t automatically scan IMEI numbers without user input, and even if it could, anyone looking to commit fraud could simply use older devices or root their phones to remove the app.”<\/p>\n