India Bans PUBG Mobile for Association With China

India has banned PUBG Mobile and 117 other apps said to be linked to China for alleged security concerns.

The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said it had received complaints about apps "stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India."

PUBG Mobile's developers are owned by Chinese conglomerate Tencent. The game is said to have been among the most popular in India.

The ministry's statement doesn't name China, saying only that the bans will "safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users." Some reports suggest the bans are related to tension between India and China over the disputed border region of Ladakh.

India banned TikTok, WeChat and more than 50 other China-based apps in June following similar reasoning. Several cities in the Indian state of Gujarat implemented their own temporary bans in March 2019 to curb the game's alleged promotion of violence and negative effect on the academic performance of children.