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New Delhi: The government's Sanchar Saathi cybersecurity application downloads increased to almost six lakh on Tuesday, a ten-fold improvement on the daily average of 60,000 downloads, based on government officials in the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The spike was a day following the order issued by the Centre compelling mobile manufacturers to pre-install the app on any new and existing handsets via software updates.
The move provoked the criticism of opposition leaders and some digital rights experts who pointed out the issues of privacy and consent. Nevertheless, authorities claimed that the app is secure, has restrictions, and users can delete it. More than 1.5 crore were already downloading the app prior to the announcement of the mandate.
DoT sources clarified that the requirement that the app be conspicuously visible and accessible is relevant to manufacturers and does not limit the ability of users to uninstall the same. They claimed that the app has minimal permissions that include active SIM verification and a one-time SMS needed to register. It is able to get to the camera and take IMEI numbers or evidence of fraud posted by the user. Authorities have stressed that the application does not read through contacts, location, microphone, Bluetooth, and other confidential data without explicit interactivity-based authorisation.
Critics claim that the requirement was done without consultation, and they may lose credibility in the technology interventions by the government. Critics such as Amol Kulkarni with CUTS International cautioned that people ought not to be made to blindly accept these steps. According to the legal experts, however, the move comes with increasing cases of digital fraud and the spread of spoofed or modified equipment. Sanjeev Kumar, the senior partner at Luthra and Luthra Law Offices, added that the push concurs with the fight against a national increase in digital arrest scams, which the Supreme Court has of late highlighted as an urgent matter.
