India's telecom authority DoT mandates permanent SIM binding for messenger services. WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal must comply within 90 days.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/54163653

The Indian telecommunications authority, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), has instructed eight messenger services to implement a permanent binding to inserted SIM cards. Affected are WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Snapchat, ShareChat, as well as the Indian services Arattai, JioChat, and Josh. According to the directive, the companies must ensure within 90 days that their services can only be used with a physically inserted SIM card.

  • als@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    5·
    2 hours ago

    I’m interested if Signal will pull out of the region, stand up to the authoritarians or fold and do as they ask

    • Matt@lemmy.ml
      21·
      2 hours ago

      Session is a fork of Signal that doesn’t require phone numbers.

  • ryannathans@aussie.zone
    10·
    7 hours ago

    How the fuck does that work with practically all of these having desktop apps? Can apps safely tell them difference between eSims and physical sims?

    • PiraHxCx@lemmy.mlEnglish
      11·
      5 hours ago

      “For web and desktop applications like WhatsApp Web, the directive provides for additional measures: users must be automatically logged out after six hours at the latest and re-authenticate via QR code”

      My WhatsApp number is from a SIM I lost (for non-payment) about 5 years ago, so far the phone company didn’t recycle the number so I’m still using it :P