Security News > 2020 > June > After Deadly Clash, India Bans 59 Chinese Mobile Apps Over 'Security'
India on Monday banned 59 Chinese mobile apps, including the wildly popular TikTok and WeChat, over national security and privacy concerns two weeks after a deadly Himalayan border clash between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
The apps "Are engaged in activities... prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order," the Ministry of Information Technology said in a statement.
Most of the applications are highly popular in India, including ByteDance-owned video-sharing apps TikTok and Helo, file-sharing app SHAREit and Alibaba's UC browser and UC News, with a combined user base of more than half a billion.
There were calls for the banning of Chinese businesses, which export goods worth nearly $60 billion to India.
Millions of Indians downloaded "Remove China Apps", a mobile application that helped users detect and delete Chinese software, before it was removed by Google from its Play Store.