Privacy Still Precarious

The government's retreat on compulsory installation of the Sanchar Saathi app underscores how urgently India needs constitutional guardrails to prevent intrusive digital governance from reshaping citizens’ private spaces

- 

In a country where the humble mobile phone serves as the primary gateway to work, banking, social life, identity authentication, and personal memory, a new directive from the Department of Telecommunications had opened an unexpected constitutional debate.

The order had required all smartphone manufacturers and importers to pre-install the Sanchar Saathi application on devices sold in India. But on Wednesday, the government withdrew the mandatory requirement after intense public scrutiny and political criticism. The Department of Telecom said it was removing the order following a tenfold jump in voluntary downloads in just one day. “Just in the last one day, 6 lakh citizens have registered for downloading the app, which is a 10x increase in its uptake. Given Sanchar Saathi’ increasing acceptance, the Government has decided not to make the pre-installation mandatory for mobile manufacturers,’ the DoT said. The withdrawal, however, does not make the underlying questions vanish. The episode remains a revealing moment in the State's evolving understanding of its power over personal technology and of how quickly constitutional concerns can rise when the boundary between governance and private digital life begins to blur.