Key Highlights
- Venugopal called the directions “beyond constitutional,” characterising the app as a “dystopian tool to monitor every Indian”.
- Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi from the Shiv Sena (UBT) said that “Sanchar Saathi mobile application mandate to every mobile phone manufacturer as a permanent mobile feature by the GoI is nothing but another BIG BOSS surveillance moment.” Sanchar Saathi is an app that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) launched initially as a website in 2023 to allow users to flag fraudulent phone calls.
- The app also integrates other tools the DoT has launched in the past, such as a feature to check the “genuineness” of the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number assigned to a device, and to block a stolen phone by barring telecom operators from working on a blacklisted IMEI.
- Mandating the app to be installed, as the DoT did in an order to phone makers on Monday (December 1, 2025), would likely mean that users wouldn’t be able to uninstall it, as is the case for private apps pre-installed on many smartphone brands’ devices.
- The DoT did not officially announce the move until after news reports came out describing the move.
