‘A permanent surveillance backdoor’: Why Sanchar Saathi app order raises privacy fears

The Bharatiya Janata Party government’s direction on Friday that all mobile handsets sold in India should have a state-owned app pre-installed has elicited alarm from lawyers and digital rights groups, who contend that this could allow the authorities to spy on citizens.

The government’s order requiring its Sanchar Saathi app to be forcibly installed on all mobile phones is a “serious breach of privacy” and the start of a new wave of app-based government surveillance, said Prateek Waghre, former Executive Director of Internet Freedom Foundation, a Delhi-based digital rights think tank.

“With complete disregard for their consent, people aren't being given a choice to prevent the forced installation of this application,” he said. “This also potentially paves the way for the government of India mandating installation of even more intrusive and problematic applications in the future.”

Added Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Hegde, “Here in the garb of security, the intrusion is vast, unfettered, unguided and is totally disproportionate. The app ought to be struck down on that account.”

The government claimed that its order under the Telecom Cyber Security Rules, 2024, is part of a broader push to “curb the misuse of telecom resources in cyber frauds” and to strengthen “telecom cyber security” across the country. Specifically, the...

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