India’s Department of Telecommunications is giving phone manufacturers 90 days to comply with an order to pre-install a state-owned app on new phones and push it to existing phones through software updates, reports Reuters. The government order was privately sent out to phone manufacturers on November 28th, according to Reuters, including Apple, Samsung, Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi.

In August, Russia issued a similar order requiring phone manufacturers to preload a state-backed messenger app, Max.

In this case, the state-owned Sanchar Saathi app is already available on the App Store and Google Play Store, but this order would make it mandatory and prevent it from being disabled or deleted. The app includes features for blocking and tracking lost or stolen phones based on their IMEI, and repor

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