Over 250 More Chinese Apps Could Be Banned, Including PubG

say the Indian🅷 government has drawn up a hitlist of 275 Chinese apps that could potentially be bꦍanned if they are found to pose a threat to national security and user privacy.

Geopolitical tensions ൲between Indian and China are at the highest they have been in years following the clash on the Himalayan border which killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and made headlin🧸es across the world.

Indian responded by banning 59 Chinese apps citing security concerns. On the ban list was the popular🅺 short video app TikTok. According to the latest reports, gaming app PubG, the AliExpress shopping app, and apps like Re🔴sso and ULike could all face bans.

Those apps are all owned or backed by some of China's biggest tech names, including Tencent, A🍷libaba, a🦋nd ByteDance, owner of TikTok.

"The government may ban all, some or none from the list", said one unnamed source. "Some of these apps have been red-flagged due to security reasons while others have been listed for violation of data sharing and privacy concerns", added an o♒fficial quoted in the India Ti𓃲mes.

TikTok had been incredibly popular in India, with 20ꦯ0 million registered users in the country and had been downloaded 660 million times since its launch two years ago, equivalent to 30% of its overall global downloads.

As of last week, Zili and Snack Video had moved into𒊎 the top 10 list on Google Play, as TikTok fans looked for similar apps. Both are Chinese-ownedꦆ.

India is also PubG's largest market, accounting for 24% of the gamin🌠g app's total downloads.

The country is not the only one looking at Chinese-owned tech with suspicion. Of concern to gove𓄧rnment's worldwide is China's data-sharing rule that r♉equires companies of Chinese-origin to share data with the home country, irrespective of which countries they operate in.

In related news, earlier this month three men wer𓃲e arrested for playing poker using a Chinese app. It was🤪n't clear what the app was and whether it too faces a ban.