T he Indian government’s ill-advised, and now withdrawn, directive to preload its ‘Sanchar Saathi’ app on every new smartphone sat at the intersection of two real concerns: the clear growth of cyberfraud and identity theft and the steady expansion of state access to personal data through tools that are difficult to audit. The government presented ‘Sanchar Saathi’ as a practical response to scams that exploit spoofed devices and anonymous accounts. But when the same app is given privileged access on hundreds of millions of devices, it structurally alters the country’s capacity for surveillance.

Manufacturers were told to ship the app so that it was visible when a user first used a device and to make sure users could not disable it. Reports indicated the app would be installed with privi

See Full Page