By – Sagarika Rastogi
The Sanchar Saathi portal is a citizen-centric initiative taken by the Department of Telecommunication (DoT), led by Jyotiraditya Scindia, which aims to strengthen mobile security for the citizens. According to a directive from DoT, the initiative is meant to address cyber frauds, ensure that a handset is genuine, track lost or stolen phones and check the number of mobile connections linked to an individual to avoid frauds. The app seeks permission to access the user’s calls and sms logs, their photo gallery, and camera app; to make and manage phone calls; and to detect mobile numbers on the phone. Initially, the government had mandated all the mobile manufacturers to pre-install the app on the new mobiles that are being produced and roll out this feature through software updates for the existing phones.
This government action has, however, been seen as a breach of privacy by a lot of netizens and has infuriated them to an extent where a large number of them are writing and commenting posts about this on their social media handles. Opposition has also been seen criticising the centre, with Priyanka Gandhi calling the entire thing “ridiculous and a snooping mechanism.” Congress, on their social media handle, has been aggressively advocating for citizens’ right to privacy and to be able to communicate with their family and friends without government surveillance. A lot of backlash has been directed towards this initiative, with many people comparing the move to China or even a dictatorship-led dystopian state control.
Hence, in an effort to douse the controversy that arose, PIB (Press Information Bureau) released a statement saying that the government has revoked the compulsory pre-installation of the app. “The number of users has been increasing rapidly and the mandate to install the app was meant to accelerate this process and make the app available to less aware citizens easily,” said the release issued by the ministry on December 3. It added that the app has seen a 10x increase in uptake with 6 lakh registered users. The release further clarified that the act was mainly meant to protect Indians from “bad actors” in the cyber world.