India asks smartphone makers to pre-install Sanchar Saathi
The Telecom Ministry in India has asked all the smartphone manufacturers, including Apple, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi and others, to pre-install Sanchar Saathi app in all their phones
New Delhi: The Telecom Ministry in India has asked all the smartphone manufacturers, including Apple, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi, Oppo and others, to pre-install Sanchar Saathi app in all their phones.
Sanchar Saathi was launched on January 17, 2025 by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) which claimed that the app, a citizen-centric tool, brings robust security features and fraud-reporting capabilities directly to users’ smartphones.
The ministry claimed the app crossed 50 lakh downloads in August this year, and has blocked over 37.28 lakh stolen/lost mobile devices and traced more than 22.76 lakh devices since its launch.
News agency Reuters citing a government order reported that the telecom ministry has now privately asked smartphone makers to preload all new devices with the state-owned cyber security app that cannot be deleted.
The November 28 order accessed by Reuters gives major smartphone companies 90 days to ensure that the government's Sanchar Saathi app is pre-installed on new mobile phones, with a provision that users cannot disable it.
For devices already in the supply chain, manufacturers should push the Sanchar Saathi app to phones via software updates, the ministry said in its order, which was not made public and was sent privately to select companies.
Likely Opposition
The move is likely to spark a tussle with Apple, which typically dislikes such directives. Apple had previously locked horns with the telecoms regulator over development of a government anti-spam mobile app, Reuters said.
With over a billion subscribers, India has emerged as the world’s second-largest telecom ecosystem. Mobile phones now serve as critical gateways to banking, entertainment, e-learning, healthcare, and government services, making mobile security more important than ever.
Apple's iOS powered an estimated 4.5% of 735 million smartphones in India by mid-2025, with the rest using Android, Counterpoint Research says.
According to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), cybercrime incidents surged from 15,92,917 in 2023 to 20,41,360 in 2024. Digital Arrest Scams and related cybercrimes reported on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal alone totalled 1,23,672 in 2024, with 17,718 cases already reported by February 2025.
SIM Card Verification
In another related move, the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has asked all messaging apps, including Whatsapp, Telegram, Arattai, Snapchat, Sharechat, Jiochat and others to enforce SIM card verification and automatically log out web-based sessions every six hours.
According to the DoT directive, the communication apps must ensure within 90 days that their services remain “continuously” linked to the SIM card used during registration.
The DoT said the messaging apps must block access if the SIM is not present in the device – a technical requirement known as SIM binding.
Additionally, web-based versions of these apps, such as WhatsApp Web, must log out users periodically, with sessions not exceeding six hours.
The new DoT directive is bound to make tougher daily routine work for the subscribers who use WhatsApp on their PCs, laptops and iPads.
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