India’s messaging app scrutiny grows: Telegram, Signal next in line after WhatsApp
The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is set to send notices to Telegram and Signal over their username-based communication features, a day after issuing a similar notice to WhatsApp, a government official told Hindustan Times on Thursday. The notices are expected to be issued on Friday.
Government concerned usernames make tracing harder
Officials and experts have said that hiding a phone number behind a username makes it more difficult to trace who is messaging whom, a concern heightened by the widespread problem of impersonation-driven scams in India.
WhatsApp says feature not yet live
Responding to Wednesday’s notice, a WhatsApp spokesperson said the username feature was not yet live and would roll out gradually later this year. The company added that it had withheld usernames resembling those of public figures, government entities and celebrities so they could only be claimed by their legitimate owners.
Arattai founder announces pullback
Separately, Sridhar Vembu, founder of Indian messaging app Arattai, said on X on Thursday that the platform would disable its username-based account feature “to comply with the regulatory change,” without specifying which regulatory change he was referring to.
Government says WhatsApp’s scale drives sharper scrutiny
The government official said WhatsApp’s massive user base explains the heightened concern compared to other platforms. “WhatsApp facilitates around 50 crore calls every day. People trust it blindly. That’s why our concerns are much greater with WhatsApp than with Telegram, which has a much smaller calling rate of around 2.5 crore calls in India,” the official said.
The official also suggested a competitive dimension to WhatsApp’s username push, saying the company may be looking to expand into territory currently held by Telegram and pursue dominance in that segment.
Second regulatory brush for Telegram this year
Friday’s notice will mark the second time this year that Telegram has come under regulatory scrutiny, having previously been temporarily blocked during the NEET-UG re-examination over concerns about circulation of exam material. The official said that episode had already heightened government attention on username-based platforms ahead of this week’s notices.
Signal faces its first direct action on username feature
Signal, in contrast, has drawn relatively little regulatory attention in India so far, despite being named alongside WhatsApp and Telegram in the SIM-binding directive. Friday’s notice would represent among the ministry’s first direct actions against the app specifically over its username feature.
All platforms fall under SIM-binding directive
Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, along with Arattai and Snapchat, fall under the Department of Telecommunications‘ SIM-binding directive, which requires messaging accounts to be linked to physical SIM cards for traceability and mandates that web sessions be logged out at least once every six hours.
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