While the recent ban on popular mobile game, Battle Ground Mobile India (BGIM), was received with much outrage and disappointment by gaming enthusiasts in India, the reason behind the ban might give them some food for thought.
Senior cyber law enforcement officers have confirmed to the Free Press Journal that there were allegedly repeated inputs about the BGIM collecting user data and sending it to servers based in China. Such data could become a potent weapon for cyberattacks against Indian citizens, they claimed.
BGIM is an Indian version of its predecessor, Player Unknown’s Battle Ground (PUBG), a mobile game that took the gaming community by storm and quickly became one of the most played games across the world. PUBG was one of the over 250 China-linked apps banned in India in September 2020. The official order banning BGIM was issued on July 29, and the game was subsequently taken off Google Playstore by Krafton, its developers.
According to sources, several reports were received from various agencies by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), which stated that the gaming app was connected to servers that were directly or indirectly based in China. Subsequent investigations into this aspect revealed some more information that formed the basis of the ban.
A source told the Free Press Journal, “It was found that the app, when installed in a user’s device, asks for several permissions. As a rule, passionate gamers don’t mind granting these permissions and we are talking about lakhs of people here.” He said that as a result, the app was collecting information like user location, as well as user’s microphone and camera; effectively, this enabled complete surveillance of the user. “This, coupled with the fact that the data was being transmitted to China-linked servers, sparked off a lot of concerns,” the source said.
There have been repeated studies and research reports which have shown that various malware, once inside a user’s device, can operate its microphone and camera without the user’s knowledge. Further, gaming apps collect basic user information like name, age and location, and many users also upload their own photographs on their profiles. Together, it places critical data in the hands of the enemy, opening up umpteen possibilities, from identity theft to the sale of this data to cyber-criminals.
In a statement released on Monday, Krafton CEO Sean Hyunil Sohn said, “There may be questions in your minds regarding the current situation about the country’s most loved game – BGMI. In line with this, we have been working hard to communicate our sincerity with the authorities concerned and resolve the issue.”
