India on Monday blocked 54 more apps with Chinese links, including Tencent Xriver, Nice Video baidu and Viva Video Editor, over security and privacy concerns.

“These 54 apps allegedly obtain various critical permissions and collect sensitive user data. These collected real-time data are being misused and transmitted to servers located in a hostile country. This will enable them to compile huge personal data to mine, collate, analyze and profile by the elements who are hostile to the sovereignty and integrity of India and for activities detrimental to national security,” Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said.

The list of banned mobile apps include Beauty Camera: Sweet Selfie HD, Beauty Camera–Selfie Camera, Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade, Viva Video Editor and Tencent Xriver, amongst others, PTI reported. Other apps that have been banned, as per fresh orders, include Garena Free Fire – Illuminate, Astracraft, FancyU pro, MoonChat, Barcode Scanner – QR Code Scan, and Lica Cam, PTI reported from New Delhi.

The crackdown marks the first such step taken this year after a massive sweep against the Chinese apps in 2020.

In June 2020, the government had banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including hugely popular TikTok and UC Browser, saying they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country.

The 2020 ban, which had come in the backdrop of stand-off in Ladakh with Chinese troops, was also applicable for WeChat and Bigo Live, besides Helo, Likee, CamScanner, Vigo Video, Mi Video Call – Xiaomi, Clash of Kings as well as e-commerce platforms Club Factory and Shein.

Thereafter, the government banned 47 more Chinese apps that were clones and variants of the apps blocked earlier.

In September the same year, the government blocked 118 more mobile applications, including popular gaming app PUBG, terming them prejudicial to the sovereignty, integrity and defence of the nation. The banned apps in that lot included Baidu, Baidu Express Edition, Tencent Watchlist, FaceU, WeChat Reading and Tencent Weiyun, besides PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite.

On Monday, the sources said the IT ministry received a request for the blocking of 54 apps from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) under the emergency provision envisaged in Section 69(A) of the Information Technology (IT) Act.

As per the report shared by MHA, these apps are either the cloned version or having similar functionality, privacy issues and security threats as alleged in previously blocked 267 apps by the government in 2020.

In addition, there are other serious concerns as some of these apps can carry out espionage and surveillance activities via camera/microphone, accessing fine location (GPS) and do malicious network activity similar to previously blocked apps, the sources said.