A Government that Spies on Citizens

Illustration by Copilot Designer

India has officially decided to keep an eagle eye on its citizens. Modi government has asked all smartphone manufacturers to preinstall a government app, Sanchar Saathi, on every phone in such a way that no citizen can ever uninstall it. The firms have been also ordered to install the app on existing phones too using software-update technology.

The stated objective is to strengthen cybersecurity and protect users from fraud. The question is why any government should go out of its way to impose “security” on its citizens.

For over a month now, I have been receiving a message every single day from the Government of India’s Telecom Department to install the app on my phone. I wanted to block the sender, but there is no such option. Even that message is an imposition. I don’t trust any government that imposes benefits on me. “Beneficent beasts of prey,” Robert Frost would call such governments.

When Modi government imposes security on me, I have reasons to be wary. Reasons to worry, if not be alarmed.

Modi government has never been benevolent to anyone who questions it. Hundreds of people have been arrested, many have been killed, and a few have just vanished into thin air, for raising inconvenient questions. When such a government asks us to install its app mandatorily on our phones, there must be reasons far beyond our personal security.

Even if my government was not as malevolent as it is, making a state app undeletable and mandatory on everyone’s phone would feel like overreach. Where do we go from such an imposed app which has access to all the messages and calls on your phone?

Many phone manufacturers including Apple have voiced concerns, according to today’s newspapers. Modi government is notorious enough for its espionage on citizens. In 2021, we were told that the Israeli surveillance software called Pegasus was employed by Modi government for spying on phones of certain journalists, activists, politicians, business people and others.

The danger is not merely that some particular people (whom the government is displeased with) may be watched. The danger is structural. State use of spyware on its citizens can erode civil liberties, deter free speech, compromise democracy, and violate personal dignity. Modi is already a quasi-dictator. Imagine what a spyware planted in every phone in the country can do for a dictator.