New Delhi: Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Tuesday known as the Centre’s Sanchar Saathi cybersecurity app a instrument for “snooping” on residents’ cellphones, describing it as a step in the direction of turning India right into a dictatorship.

Her remarks got here a day after the Ministry of Communications directed smartphone producers to pre-install the app on all gadgets to be offered inside the subsequent three months.

Along with Opposition leaders, privateness advocates have additionally raised issues concerning the authorities’s directive requiring cellular producers to make sure that the app “is quickly seen and accessible to finish customers on the time of first use or gadget setup and that its functionalities aren’t disabled or restricted.”

This was extensively interpreted as an instruction that the app could be non-removable. Nevertheless, Union Minister for Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia clarified on Tuesday that customers would have the choice to activate the app provided that they selected to, and would even be allowed to delete it.

“This app doesn’t allow snooping or name monitoring. You possibly can activate or deactivate it as per your want… If you happen to don’t need Sanchar Saathi, you’ll be able to delete it. It’s elective… It’s about buyer safety. I wish to clear all misconceptions… It’s our obligation to introduce this app to everybody. Protecting it on their gadgets or not is up as much as the person… It may be deleted from the cell phone similar to another app…” Scindia stated.

#WATCH | Delhi | On the controversy round Sanchar Saathi app, Union Minister for Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia says, “When the opposition has no points, and they’re looking for some, we can’t assist them. Our obligation is to assist the shoppers and guarantee their security. The Sanchar… https://t.co/Kr3juNrGFq pic.twitter.com/npwm9R1Kf2

— ANI (@ANI) December 2, 2025

Talking earlier than Scindia’s clarification, Vadra stated that whereas cybersecurity measures are mandatory, they don’t give the federal government a licence to intrude into residents’ non-public lives.

“There’s a really fantastic line between reporting fraud and monitoring what each citizen is doing on their telephone. That’s not the way it ought to work. There needs to be an efficient system to report fraud. We’ve mentioned this at nice size, there’s a necessity for cybersecurity, however that doesn’t imply you get an excuse to enter each citizen’s telephone. I don’t assume any citizen could be glad,” she stated.

CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas additionally criticised the transfer, invoking the Pegasus spy ware controversy. He additional questioned the standing of the CERT-In (Indian Pc Emergency Response Workforce) probe into claims made by a number of Opposition leaders in 2023 that that they had obtained warnings from Apple about “state-sponsored assaults” on their gadgets.

“Has anybody heard concerning the consequence of CERT-In’s probe into state-sponsored iPhone hacks? Questions requested in Parliament on this have been repeatedly disallowed… Subsequent step, clearly: Ankle screens, collars and mind implants for 1.4 billion folks. Solely then will the federal government lastly know what we actually assume and do,” Brittas wrote on X.

(Edited by Viny Mishra)

Additionally learn: Make Sanchar Saathi detachable. Good intentions don’t excuse State overreach