Sanchar Saathi app: Centre makes volte-face on mandatory pre-installation order

In a major volte-face, the Centre, on Wednesday (December 3), withdrew its controversial order, dated November 28, that directed all “manufacturers and importers” to mandatorily pre-install the Sanchar Saathi app in all mobile handsets.

The Union government’s fresh decision to revoke its earlier order came amid growing criticism by the Opposition, legal experts and privacy activists who dubbed the order not just as a serious breach of the Supreme Court’s Right to Privacy judgment but also an “attempt to illegally snoop on every Indian citizen”.

What Scindia said in Lok Sabha

Ironically, hours before the Centre revoked its November 28 direction, Union telecom minister Jyotiraditya Scindia had rubbished the concerns being raised over illegal surveillance and breach of privacy of citizens through the contentious App. Replying to a question by Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda in Lok Sabha over the Sanchar Saathi App, Scindia had said India had over One billion mobile phone users and that “it is the responsibility of the government to protect the people from elements who misuse (cyber technology) and it is with this intent that we had started the Sanchar Saathi portal in 2023 and the Sanchar Saathi App this year”.

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“What is this Sanchar Saathi app? It is an app that allows people to protect themselves against fraud, allows them to record and report their stolen mobiles; our portal has received nearly 20 crore hits and nearly 1.5 crore users have downloaded the app. It is on the basis of this jan-bhaagidaari (people’s participation) that has made the App a success. It is due to reporting by ordinary people through this App that we have been able to disconnect 1.5 crore fraudulent mobile connections, we have recovered over 26 lakh stolen mobiles by tracking through this app... we have been able to block six lakh frauds,” Scindia told Lok Sabha.

The Union Telecom minister also claimed that the choice of using the Sanchar Saathi app pre-installed on their phones was entirely with the user as “it can’t operate automatically; it will operate only when the user chooses to do so and the user can also delete the app. We have only decided to take this step (of making pre-installation mandatory for mobile manufacturers and importers) to ensure availability of the app”.

Govt’s 3 specific directions

It is a different matter that Scindia’s claims were only half true. A bare reading of the November 28 directive issued by the department of telecommunications makes three things amply clear. Firstly, it directed all mobile manufacturers and importers to mandatorily pre-install the app on new handsets “within 90 days of issue of these instructions”. Secondly, it directed, must be “readily visible and accessible to the end users at the time of first use or device set-up and that its functionalities are not disabled or restricted”. Finally, it directed mobile companies to “push the app through software updates” for all mobile handsets that are already manufactured and currently “in sales channels in India”.

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It is these three specific directions that had riled up critics and even mobile manufacturers such as Apple, which had expressed reservations against pre-installing the app. On Wednesday, while Congress MP Hooda raised the matter of breach of privacy and snooping through the app in the Lok Sabha during Question Hour, his party colleague Randeep Singh Surjewala made a Zero Hour mention in the Rajya Sabha asserting that there were apprehensions that the App would “permit pointing out real time geo location of users” besides “monitoring search history and transactions conducted through the cellphone and monitoring of conversation/SMS/WhatsApps”.

Congress likens Sanchar Sathi app to Pegasus

The Congress’s media wing in-charge Pawan Khera too held a press conference slamming the Centre and likening the Sanchar Saathi app to the immensely controversial Pegasus snooping software. “What Pegasus was to VIPs of this country, Sanchar Saathi is to the common man,” Khera said while dubbing the November 28 directive an “Orwellian intrusion”.

“The BJP government has been brazenly snooping on citizens, but when caught red-handed this time, it attempted to mislead the entire nation with a false and deceptive ‘clarification’,” Khera said.

Through the furore, the Centre kept up a defiant face with Scindia mocking critics a day earlier too and calling their concerns “baseless”. However, signs that the government was willing to at least partially scale back its directive had come during Scindia’s response in Lok Sabha when he said, “we are not adamant... if we need to make changes to that order, we are ready for it but I want to make it clear that neither is snooping possible through this App nor will snooping happen.”

Less than three hours later, the Centre made a complete U-turn with the Ministry of Communications issuing a statement that clearly tried to gloss over the political storm by claiming, “Given Sanchar Saathi’s increasing acceptance, Government has decided not to make the pre-installation mandatory for mobile manufacturers.”

For an Opposition that has been desperate for any win against the Centre in wake of the BJP’s renascent poll fortunes, the volte-face comes as a morale booster that signals its ability to still force Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime into administrative course correction despite its steadily diminishing electoral heft.