India bans 100 more Chinese-linked apps, including PUBG and VPN for TikTok

As border tensions ratchet up, India adds a new slate of prohibited apps to its growing list.

Rae Hodge Former senior editor

Rae Hodge was a senior editor at CNET. She led CNET's coverage of privacy and cybersecurity tools from July 2019 to January 2023. As a data-driven investigative journalist on the software and services team, she reviewed VPNs, password managers, antivirus software, anti-surveillance methods and ethics in tech. Prior to joining CNET in 2019, Rae spent nearly a decade covering politics and protests for the AP, NPR, the BBC and other local and international outlets.

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Rae Hodge

Sept. 2, 2020 6:47 a.m. PT

Angela Lang/CNET

Cybersecurity concerns reportedly prompted India to ban more than 100 mobile apps with links to China on Wednesday, according to TechCrunch. The banned apps include popular mobile game PUBG, along with VPN for TikTok and WeChat Work.

The full list of apps appears in a press release reportedly from India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which said the ministry had received complaints about the apps' data handling.

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"Several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India. The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defense of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India," the ministry said in the release.

India banned wildly popular Chinese video-sharing app TikTok and 58 others -- including WeChat and Weibo -- in June after a border clash between troops from both countries left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead.