In June last year, Government of India banned as many as 59 Chinese mobile applications, including the ubiquitous Tik-Tok and WeChat citing threat to nation's security as the reason for the ban. The apps, banned in exercise of Section 69A of the Information and Technology Act, at the time drew widespread scrutiny and even criticism from some quarters.
In yet another exercise of a widespread ban, on Monday, The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology banned another set of 54 Chinese apps on the grounds of national security. "These 54 apps allegedly obtain various critical permissions and collects sensitive user data. These collected real-time data are being misused and transmitted to servers located in hostile country," said the ministry in a statement.
The full list of banned Chinese apps is given below. It must be noted, that ever since border tensions with China that surfaced in May 2020, India has blocked as many as 321 applications. Majority of the banned apps happen to be driven by Instagram trend of filters, selfies, music, video cloning and photo editing applications.
1. Beauty Camera: Sweet Selfie HD
2. Beauty Camera—Selfie Camera
3. Equaliser- Bass Booster & Volume EQ & Virtualizer
4. Music Player- Music, Mp3 Player
5. Equalizer & Bass Booster—Music Volume EQ
6. Music Plus-MP3 Player
7. Equalizer Pro—Volume Booster & Bass Booster
8. Video Player Media All Format
9. Music Player---Equalizer &MP3
10. Volume Booster---Loud Speaker & Sound Booster
11. Music Player---MP3 Player
12. CamCard for SalesForce Ent
13. Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite
14. Rise of Kingdoms---Lost Crusade
15. APUS Security HD (Pad Version)
16. Parallel Space Lite 32 Support
17. Viva Video Editor—Snack Video Maker with Music
18. Nice video Baidu
19. Tencent Xriver
20. Onmyoji Chess
21. Onmyoji Arena
22. AppLock
23. Dual Space Lite—Multiple Accounts and Clone App
24. Dual Space Pro---Multiple Accounts and App Cloner
25. Dual Space Lite---32Bit Support
26. Dual Space---32Bit Support
27. Dual Space---64Bit Support
28. Dual Space Pro—32Bit Support
29. Conquer Online ---MMORPG Game
30. Conquer Online II
31. Live Weather and Radar --Alerts
32. Notes---Colour Notepad, Notebook
33. MP3 Cutter--- Ringtone Maker and Audio Cutter
34. Voice Recorder and Voice Changer
35. Barcode Scanner--- QR Code Scan
36. Lica Cam---selfie camera app
37. EVE Echoes
38. Astacraft
39. UU Game Booster—network solution for high ping
40. Extraordinary Ones
41. Badlanders
42. Stick Fight: The Game Mobile
43. Twilight Pioneers
44. CuteU: Match with the word
45. Small World---Enjoy groupchat and video chat
46. CuteU Pro
47. Fancyu---Video chat and meetup
48. RealU: Go Live, Make Friends
49. Moonchat: Enjoy Video Chats
50. RealU Lite: video to live!
51. Wink: Connect Now
52. FunChat Meet People Around You
53. FancyU Pro---Instant Meetup through Video chat
54. Garena Free Fire---Illuminate