NEW DELHI, India (CelebrityAccess) — India has banned dozens of apps from Chinese companies, including TikTok, and WeChat.
In a statement, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the apps were “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”.
The Ministry also cited concerns about potential data mining and profiling of app users.
“The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures,” the ministry said.
The bans, which impacted 59 different apps, comes amid increased tension between China and India. Both nuclear-armed nations have deployed additional troops to the Ladakh region in June, and minor clashes have left at least 20 Indian troops dead.
As well, satellite images appear to show that China has been building new structures overlooking a shared border region in the Himalayas, the BBC reported.
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in Beijing and first became widely used in China before taking off worldwide.
This isn’t the first time that TikTok has been banned in India. In 2019, the app was banned after Indian lawmakers raised concerns about it being used to spread pornography. However, the ban only lasted about a week.
