Govt blocks 138 betting and 94 loan apps linked to China

According to the government, the 138 betting apps contained material prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of the country.

New Delhi, Feb 05: In a major crackdown, the central government is likely to 138 betting apps and 94 loan lending apps with Chinese connections on an "urgent" and "emergency" basis.

Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has issued orders to block these apps following instructions from Ministry of Home Affairs.

According to the government, the 138 betting apps contained material prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of the country. The apps were involved in betting, gambling and unauthorised loan service.

The decision was taken after confirming that these apps attract Section 69 of the IT Act as they contain material which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India.

The action followed by several complaints of extortion and harassment of common people who had availed small amounts of loans through the mobile apps being run by those entities and persons.

"The order to block 138 apps that were involved in betting, gambling and money laundering were issued last evening. Separately, an order to block 94 apps engaged in unauthorised loan service has also been issued. These apps were being operated from offshore entities, including Chinese. They were posing a threat to the economic stability of the country," the official, who did not wish to be named , told PTI.

The official did not disclose the name of the apps that have been blocked. An official query sent to MeitY did not elicit any immediate response.

Last year, Centre had banned 54 Chinese apps, including Equalizer & Bass Booster, Tencent Xriverwhich posed threat to India's security.

Thee 54 apps allegedly obtained critical permissions and collected sensitive user data. The data was being misused and sent to servers in a hostile country, the IT ministry had said in a statement.

These apps are either a cloned version or have similar functionality, privacy issues and security threats.

In June 2020, the government had banned 59 apps and later blocked 47 related/cloning apps on August 10, 2020.

Later, 118 apps were blocked on September 1, 2020, and another 43 apps on November 19, the same year.