India has U-turned on its plan to force smartphone manufacturers to pre-install the Sanchar Saathi cyber-safety app, responding to fierce criticism over privacy and surveillance concerns. The app is now voluntary, highlighting tensions between security and user rights in digital policy.
India has dropped its plan to force smartphone makers to pre-install the Sanchar Saathi cyber-safety app after a fierce backlash over privacy and state surveillance. According to TechCrunch, the telecom ministry has now made the app voluntary, reversing an order that had required manufacturers to put it on new handsets and stop users from disabling it. The change follows days of criticism from privacy advocates, opposition figures and technology firms that said the policy gave the government too much reach into personal devices.
The original directive, issued in December 2025, applied to all smartphones sold in India, including devices from Apple and Android manufacturers, and set a 90-day compliance deadline, according to reports from GigaZine and Android Central. Those reports said the app was designed to help with cybercrime complaints, device tracing and handset recovery, but that it also requested broad permissions, including access to the camera, microphone, contacts and location data. The scope of those permissions drove much of the concern, particularly because the app was to be installed before sale rather than chosen by the user.
The government has argued that Sanchar Saathi is a security tool rather than a surveillance system. India’s communications minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia, said the app could not be used to “snoop” on users or access private data, NDTV reported. The Department of Telecommunications has also pointed to the app’s record in recovering lost devices, with one report saying it had helped retrieve about 700,000 phones by October 2025. Beebom noted that users concerned about permissions could instead use the service through a web portal, which does not require access to device functions.
Even so, the controversy exposed a familiar fault line between public-security arguments and digital privacy rights. The Guardian reported that Apple and other manufacturers were reluctant to comply, citing privacy and security implications, while opposition politicians warned that a compulsory government app on every phone could normalise expanded state access to devices. The retreat from the mandate appears to reflect both the scale of that criticism and the practical difficulty of enforcing such a policy across the smartphone market.
The episode now leaves Sanchar Saathi in a more conventional, opt-in position, but the debate it triggered is likely to persist. Supporters will point to its usefulness in tracing stolen phones and dealing with spam or fraud. Critics will argue that any tool asking for deep device permissions must be subject to strict limits, clear governance and stronger independent oversight, especially when it is backed by the state.
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