A major political dispute has broken out over the Centre’s directive requiring mobile phone manufacturers to install the Sanchar Saathi app on all handsets made or imported in India. The government says the move is intended to protect citizens from cyber fraud and assist in recovering lost phones. Congress and other Opposition parties, however, have alleged that it is a step towards state surveillance and have demanded an immediate withdrawal of the directive.
What is Sanchar Saathi
Sanchar Saathi is a digital safety initiative of the Centre that offers several citizen-focused services through a mobile app and its web portal. These include Chakshu, a feature that allows phone users to report suspected cyber fraud. According to the Sanchar Saathi website, such proactive reporting helps the Department of Telecommunications prevent the misuse of telecom resources for cybercrime and financial fraud. Chakshu can also be used to report commercial spam calls.
The Sanchar Saathi website further states that Chakshu enables users to report malicious web links and fraudulent communications. These include phishing links, device cloning attempts and other malware sent via SMS, RCS, iMessage and social media platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram.
What is the Centre's directive to phonemakers on Sanchar Saathi
The Department of Telecommunications, under the Ministry of Communications, headed by Jyotiraditya Scindia, has instructed mobile phone manufacturers to ensure that the Sanchar Saathi app is pre-installed on all handsets made or imported in India within 90 days from November 28.
Why Opposition is alarmed over the app?
The Centre's order to phone makers over the mandatory installation of the app has drawn widespread criticism and concern from the Opposition during the ongoing winter session of the Parliament. Several parties have raised flagging breach of privacy and surveillance claims against people.
Congress leader and MP Priyanka Gandhi claimed Sanchar Saathi is a snooping app that affects citizens' right to privacy.
"It is a snooping app. It's ridiculous. Citizens have the right to privacy. Everyone must have the right to privacy to send messages to family, friends without the government looking at everything. They are turning this country into a dictatorship in every form. The parliament is not functioning because the government is refusing to talk about anything. It's very easy to blame the Opposition... There's a very fine line between reporting fraud and seeing what every citizen of India is doing on their phone," she added.
Priyanka Chaturvedi, a Rajya Sabha MP from Shiv Sena UBT, said the move is simply another Big Boss-style surveillance step. She said such questionable attempts to enter individual phones will be opposed and protested, and if the IT Ministry believes it can create surveillance systems instead of building strong grievance redressal mechanisms, it should be prepared for resistance.
Will speak to Opposition, says Centre
Speaking to reporters outside the Parliament, Union minister Kiren Rijiju brushed aside the opposition's claims around the Sanchar Saathi app.
"They don't need to dig out issues. A list of businesses has been prepared, and there are many issues. We will have a debate on the issues raised by the opposition as well and think about how we need to move ahead. They don't need to find new issues and disturb the Parliament. All issues are important in their own place, but if you use these issues as a weapon to stall the Parliament, it is not right... We will hold talks with opposition leaders. I am in touch with them already... We are not belittling their issues, but there are many issues in the country, not just one," he said.
Also read: What is 'Sanchar Saathi', the app government wants to pre-install in every new phone?
