India drops plan to force Apple to preinstall state owned app on iPhones

Reuters reports that the Indian government has given up on its plan to mandate that Apple and other smartphone makers pre-install a state-owned “security” app. Here are the details.

India backs down on controversial plan

Late last year, the Indian government instructed Apple, Samsung, and other smartphone manufacturers to pre-install Sanchar Saathi, an undeletable state-run security app that raised privacy concerns.

As my colleague Ben Lovejoy explained last December:

The government is framing it as a way to help users recover lost and stolen phones, but it ensures that all phones can be tracked by the government, with obvious implications for user privacy.

Shortly after the government issued its mandate, which would have also applied to iPhones in use in India via an iOS update, Apple said it wouldn’t comply, echoing its response to similar requests in the past.

Now, Reuters reports that the Indian government “has decided not to go ahead” with the proposal, stating only that the country’s IT ministry had held a “consultation with stakeholders from the electronics industry” before reaching this decision.

India’s IT ministry reviewed the proposal and “is not in favour of mandating the pre-installation of ​the Aadhaar App on smartphones,” UIDAI said in a statement to Reuters on Friday.

Today’s decision fits into a broader pattern. The Indian government has repeatedly tried to require smartphone makers to preinstall state apps over the past few years, to no avail. Here’s Reuters:

The Aadhaar request was the sixth time in two years the government has sought pre-installation of state apps on phones, according to industry communications reviewed by Reuters earlier this year. All six attempts were opposed by the industry.

As has been the case from the start, Sanchar Saathi remains available on the App Store for users who want to install it, but today’s decision drops the requirement for it to be preinstalled on new devices or automatically pushed to iPhones already in use via an iOS update.

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