For the past few weeks, mobile phone users in the country have been receiving SMS from the telecom department asking: Do you want to check number of SIMs in your name? Is someone misusing your name for mobile connections? Do you want to report any fake calls or messages? Alongside, the messages suggest a solution to these issues: download the app 'Sanchar Saathi'! Now a secret directive by the Centre to make the Sanchar Saathi app mandatory on all smartphones sold in India, having no option to uninstall, has become public. The app is required to be installed not only on phones yet to be manufactured but also on those being launched and currently in use. In addition to the previously mentioned benefits, the government offers that app will help block and recover phones in the event of theft. Is providing these services to the people the real motive behind enforcing the app? Civil rights activists and opposition leaders view 'Saathi' with deep suspicion. The main concern is whether the app will become a tool to steal information from phones and keep citizens under constant government surveillance. Senior media person and Rajya Sabha member John Brittas called it as part of a move to transform India into a surveillance state. AICC General Secretary K.C. Venugopal termed this idea, being an invasion of privacy and violation of fundamental rights, a Big Brother move to monitor everything. Although Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia came out with a clarification, when the directive became public, saying that users can uninstall the app if they wish, there are several reasons why it could not be accepted at face value.
The mystery begins with the secrete directive asking companies like Apple, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Oppo to install the app. It could have been recommended publicly if there was no malicious intent. The government's practice usually is to advertise every small project, even the renamed versions of projects launched by previous governments, as achievements of the Union Cabinet with the Prime Minister's photo from newspapers and channels to petrol pumps. Apple, which does not allow such apps as part of its efforts to protect user privacy, has criticized the government's proposal as a violation of global security standards. The company decided not to comply with the directive. Apple has warned that government agencies are constantly trying to hack into the iPhones of political leaders and others, despite the company's extensive security measures. What could be the consequence of making an app like this mandatory in the world's largest mobile phone market with 1.2 billion users?
The government can collect not only the data in the phone but observe even people's movements. Not only will the fundamental right to privacy be thrown to the winds, but the collected data will also be sold without any control. We have previous experience of having data including biometric information collected for Aadhaar enrolment sold to big companies. The central government has not yet denied the allegations that it had used Pegasus, a spyware developed by Israeli cyber-weapons maker NSO Group, to spy not only opposition leaders and civil society and media activists but also Supreme Court judges and members of the Union Cabinet. The Center was not ready to cooperate with the investigations suggested by Supreme Court into this matter. SentinelOne, a U.S.-based cybersecurity agency, has revealed that fake evidences were planted, using malware, on the laptops of human rights activists including Prof. Hani Babu and Rona Wilson, who were imprisoned on false charges. Israel and China, notorious for intruding into civil life and violating rights, use such systems to track down activists and eliminate them for suppressing dissent. The possibility of the ruling Hindutva fascists pursuing similar attempts cannot be ruled out as it eagerly borrows weapons, war machines and the ideology of violence from Israel.