India’s government backtracked on a controversial measure requiring manufacturers to preinstall a state-owned cybersecurity app on smartphones.

In a statement, India’s Ministry of Communications announced given increasing uptake of the Sanchar Saathi app, the decision had been made to not make installation by manufacturers mandatory.

“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,” it explained.

Earlier in the week Apple said it did not plan to comply with the government directive to preinstall the app on all new handsets, Reuters reported.

Criticism
Reversal of the policy comes a day after communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia issued a statement on X clarifying use of the app was voluntary and users would be allowed to delete the app. This went against the original policy whereby the app was unremovable.

Scindia said it could be activated “at their convenience to access its benefits, and they may deactivate or delete it from their devices at any time”.

He insisted the app “is not surveillance, it is a citizen safety tool”, adding it is both an app and a portal that enables citizens to secure themselves through transparent, easy-to-use tools.

Canalys senior analyst Sanyam Chaurasia told Mobile World Live allowing users to delete the app significantly softened the original mandate and reduced the impact on device experience and OEM strategies.

More importantly, he suggested “the real inflection point” will depend on how convincingly data privacy, user consent and transparency are addressed.

“Until strong safeguards and legal clarity are in place, this is likely to remain a developing policy experiment rather than a hard, industry-wide operating requirement.”

Story updated on 3 December at 12.30 GMT to include the latest statement. Additional reporting by Chris Donkin.