The Centre has announced its decision to roll back the order mandating smartphone companies to preinstall the Sanchar Saathi app.
The order was sent directly to device manufacturers, including Apple, this week.
The Centre says the decision to withdraw the decision was made because "the number of users who have downloaded the app (over six lakh in the past 24 hours and 1.4 crore users overall) has been increasing rapidly."
They also said that the mandate was meant to accelerate this process.
The annoucement also said that "The app is secure and purely meant to help citizens from bad actors in the cyber world" and that "It helps in "Jan Bhagidari" by all citizens in reporting on such bad actors and actions while protecting users themselves. There is no other function other than protecting the users in the app and they can remove the app whenever they want."
Government removes mandatory pre-installation of Sanchar Saathi App
— PIB India (@PIB_India) December 3, 2025
The Government with an intent to provide access to cyber security to all citizens had mandated pre-installation of Sanchar Saathi app on all smartphones. The app is secure and purely meant to help citizens from…
According to the Department of Telecommunications the app has helped recover over 700,000 lost phones, block more than 3.7 million stolen devices and terminate 30 million fake mobile connections
Union Minister for Communications and Development of the North Eastern Region, Jyotiraditya Scindia, informed the parliament that the government is willing to mend the rules of the platform based on public suggestions and feedback during a discussion in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. He had also said that that snooping is neither possible nor will it happen with the app.
Ealier on Wednesday, Opposition Congress's media and publicity department head Pawan Khera accused the governement of "brazenly snooping" on the citizens and giving a "false and deceptive" clarification when caught "red-handed".
"Their Communications Minister confidently claimed that the Sanchar Saathi app can be deleted, a statement that collapses instantly under the weight of the government’s own direction, where Section 7(b) categorically states that the pre-installed app cannot be removed, nor can any of its 'functionalities be disabled or restricted'," Khera said at a press conference.
"The government claims the pre-installed Sanchar Saathi app is harmless, yet it intrudes into the most private aspects of citizens’ lives, messages, banking, health data, and personal communications," Khera said.
