The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is considering these new rules amid concerns about spying and abuse of user data, said a senior government official, declining to be identified, as the information is not yet public.

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“Pre-installed apps can be a weak security point and we want to ensure no foreign nations, including China, are exploiting it. It’s a matter of national security,” the official added. Under the proposed rules, smartphone makers will have to provide an uninstall option and new models will be checked for compliance by a lab authorised by the Bureau of Indian Standards agency, sources said.

“Majority of smartphones used in India are having pre-installed Apps/Bloatware which poses serious privacy/information security issue(s),” stated a February 8 confidential government record of an IT ministry meeting, seen by Reuters. Representatives from Xiaomi, Samsung, Apple and Vivo attended the closed-door meeting. The government has decided to give smartphone makers a year to comply once the rule comes into effect, the date for which has not been fixed yet, the document added.

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