Amid the India-China faceoff in Ladakh, the Indian government has been recommended by the country’s intelligence agencies to block or advise the citizens to stop the use of 52 mobile applications linked to China.
The intelligence agencies have expressed concerns that these mobile applications are not safe and end up extracting a large amount of data outside India, says a media report.
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According to the report, security establishments have submitted a list of mobile applications to the central government.
The list includes short-video app TikTok, video conferencing app Zoom, and other utility and content apps such as SHAREit, Clean-master, UC browser, and Xender.
The report quoted a senior central government official as saying that the National Security Council Secretariat has supported the recommendations from the intelligence agencies.
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The report quoted the official as saying: “The discussions on the recommendations are continuing.”
The official further said that the parameters and the risks attached to each mobile app will have to be examined one by one.
The Union Home Ministry in April this year issued an advisory on the use of Zoom.
The advisory was issued on the recommendations from the national cybersecurity agency – Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-in).
Use of Zoom has been banned by the government in Taiwan while the German Foreign Ministry has restricted its use of Zoom to emergency situations on personal computers.
Besides, the United States Senate has also advised its members to use platforms other than Zoom.