India bans 54 Chinese apps citing security threats

India has banned 54 Chinese apps citing a threat to the country's security, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) said today.

"These 54 apps allegedly obtain various critical permissions and collects sensitive user data. These collected real-time data are being misused and transmitted to servers located in hostile country," the ministry said in a statement.

The list of banned apps include - Sweet Selfie HD, Beauty Camera - Selfie Camera, Garena Free Fire - Illuminate, Viva Video Editor, Tencent Xriver, Onmyoji Arena, AppLock and Dual Space Lite, ANI tweeted.

Since June 2020, the government has banned around 224 Chinese smartphone apps, including TikTok, Shareit, WeChat, Helo, Likee, UC News, Bigo Live, UC Browser, ES File Explorer, and Mi Community.

The first round of bans was announced in June 2020, days after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese troops at Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh.

According to ministry sources, some of these applications were banned by the Indian government earlier too but had rebranded themselves and relaunched under new names. Upon official confirmation and after establishing the country of origin, orders have once again been issued to ban the apps.

Several of these apps have been known to either allegedly run malicious software or directly send user information to China-based data centres without user consent, ministry sources said.

The ministry further informed that although the apps are being taken down from app stores, some may still function on devices on which they have already been downloaded.