Centre seeks access to phone source codes
GOVERNANCE – POLICY
12 JANUARY 2026
- The Centre is considering legally imposing a set of requirements for smartphone makers in Indian markets as part of a raft of “security measures”, prompting behind-the-scenes opposition from tech giants such as Apple and Samsung.
- Among the most sensitive requirements for “vulnerability analysis” in the new Indian Telecom Security Assurance Requirements, drafted in 2023, is access to source code — the underlying programming instructions that make phones work and closely guarded by the manufacturers.
- This will be analysed and possibly tested at designated Indian labs, the documents show.
- Apple had declined China’s request for its source code between 2014 and 2016, and U.S. law enforcement has also tried and failed to get it.
- The proposals require automatic and periodic malware scanning on phones and storing of records of a phone’s activities in the device for at least one year.
- Tech companies have countered that the package of 83 security standards, which will include a requirement to alert the government to major software updates, lacks any global precedent and risks revealing proprietary details.
- Indian government requirements have irked technology firms before.
- In December 2025, the Centre revoked an order mandating a state-run cyber safety app, Sanchar Saathi, on phones amid concerns over surveillance.
