Safety Tool or Surveillance Gateway? Why the Sanchar Saathi app order has sparked political alarm

It’s already causing a stir online: in what’s being seen as a major move on cybersecurity and telecom surveillance, the DoT has mandated that all smartphone companies, and importers, pre-install a government-run app on all phones being sold or shipped to India(BHARAT), called Sanchar Saathi. Additionally, the order says this app should be visible on phones during initial setup (when the device is first switched on by a new user), and should be ‘protected’ so that it can’t be removed by that user.

But before we take a deeper dive into the potential privacy and surveillance implications: what is this app, and why was it initially released?

What is Sanchar Saathi, and why was it made?

Sanchar Saathi was originally released as a voluntary app by the government in January 2025, as a part of its stated broader efforts to clamp down on telecom-related vulnerabilities and cyber frauds.

It is a helpline service that allows users to:

• Verify the genuineness of a handset based on its IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number.
• Report and block lost/stolen handsets.

Report suspected misuse of telecom services, suspicious/fraud SIMs or missed calls, and check for mobile connections under their name.

So far, Sanchar Saathi has reportedly logged millions of downloads, and helped block or retrieve lakhs of lost/stolen or counterfeit handsets.

For the government and DoT, it was only a natural progression: given the scope and scale of secondhand device trading in India(BHARAT) (which has been known to circulate and popularise counterfeit devices), making the app pre-installed becomes a matter of public safety and security, by helping citizens directly check the validity of devices they’re using, and police their networks.

But why are some critics upset – What’s the concern about privacy, user consent and surveillance?

The nature of this specific mandate – making an app pre-installed (visible to users on device setup), while also making it protected/unremovable – is a key concern: not the fact that a government-run app is being added onto devices, but the fact that it has been made mandatory with no option for consent. Privacy and digital-rights activists have called it an imposition and a violation of the user’s rights and autonomy.

“If a government app is made mandatory pre-installation on a phone, then we can call it a lost-phone tracker, but the reality is that it becomes a government tracker on your device.” – one activist summarises the argument against it.

A key difference, many experts have also noted, between a user-initiated download and installation vs a preinstalled one that is there by default and can’t be removed, is the potential and latent control of a state agency over every individual phone.

Couple this with the fact that major brands like Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo – some of the biggest named in the order – were reportedly not given prior industry consultation before the order, and these are reasons why activists have pitted the move as a privacy vs surveillance debate – and compared it to the concerns raised around state-sponsored apps pre-installed in other countries.

Will it impact smartphone users? The wider debate ahead

For ordinary smartphone users, the biggest impact they will feel is that going forward, new devices – and even some existing ones sold by these brands, will have an additional app on the device that cannot be deleted.

The trade-off will be left to the market to decide – but it is already under contention: from digital-rights organisations that may be on a legal push for clarity and potential intervention, to device manufacturers that are potentially weighing up their ability and costs to comply (or resist, as some brands reportedly are) to the individual end-users, who will now ask more questions about their privacy and the freedom to choose what apps are on their devices.