India bans use of 59 Chinese apps

India bans the use of 59 Chinese apps. TikTok and various apps from Xiaomi and AliBaba, among others, are no longer allowed to be used in the country. The apps are said to be “a threat to the sovereignty and security of the country.”

The apps are banned by the Ministry of ICT. It concerns a list of 59 apps that all come from China. The most famous of these is TikTok from the company ByteDance, but the UC Browser and UC News from AliBaba and the Video Call app from Xiaomi are also popular in India. Of the apps, 27 were in the top thousand most downloaded Android apps in the country. Tencent apps such as WeChat and Baidu are also no longer allowed to be used in the country.

In particular, the Indian ministry cites the potential privacy violations of the apps as the cause of the ban. “There are serious concerns about the data security and privacy protection of millions of Indians,” the ministry writes. “Those concerns are a threat to the sovereignty and security of our country.” The ministry is said to have received many complaints of abuse by the apps in which user data was collected and sent to servers outside India.

It is not clear how exactly India intends to enforce the ban. At the moment, the apps are still in the Play and App Store. Google and Apple have not yet received requests for removal from the government.