India bans PUBG Mobile and over 100 other Chinese apps

The government of India has banned PUBG Mobile and more than 100 other Chinese-made apps. The responsible ministry has announced this. The best known of these is Alipay from the Alibaba Group.

The electronics and IT ministry says the apps are “engaged in activities that are detrimental to India’s sovereignty, defense, security and public order.” This mainly concerns data from users, the ministry emphasizes. “The ministry has received reports that these apps are stealing users’ data and secretly sending it to servers located outside of India.” The ministry calls this ‘a major and urgent concern that requires emergency measures’.

The list includes PUBG Mobile Nordic Map: Livik, PUBG Mobile Lite and various apps from Alibaba, such as Alipay and parts of WeChat. The list contains a total of 118 apps, including apps to still be able to use TikTok in the country. India banned TikTok and more than 50 other apps back in June. The US also wants to ban TikTok, unless parent company ByteDance sells the US branch of the app. The US also wants to ban WeChat.