India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has ordered Apple to remove Bitchat, the Bluetooth-based messaging app backed by Jack Dorsey, from its App Store in India, TechCrunch reported Saturday. The app has also disappeared from Google Play in the country, and its website is inaccessible on several Indian internet providers.

What Happened

The order was issued under Section 69A of India's Information Technology Act, the provision the government uses to direct the blocking of online content. Apple removed Bitchat from its Indian storefront and also cut off access to beta versions distributed through TestFlight, its testing service, according to TechCrunch. The app remains available outside India.

Google Play also stopped offering Bitchat for download in India, and the project's website could not be reached across several internet service providers in the country. Apple, Google and the IT ministry did not respond to TechCrunch's requests for comment.

RelatedU.S. Begins Selecting Leaders for Program Enlisting Firms Against Foreign Cybercriminals

The move follows an earlier step against the open-source project. In July, Indian authorities ordered GitHub to take down repositories containing Bitchat's code. The government said then that the app's design made it hard for law enforcement agencies to intercept communications or trace users, and pointed to its ability to keep working during internet shutdowns.

Why It Matters

Bitchat does not need the internet. It passes encrypted messages from phone to phone over Bluetooth, forming a mesh network among nearby devices, so it keeps working when mobile data is cut off. That has made it popular in places where governments shut down connectivity during unrest.

India is one of the world's most frequent users of internet shutdowns, and an app designed to work around them puts it in direct conflict with that approach. TechCrunch reported that during protests in July, users turned to Bitchat and a rival app, Briar, after internet cuts, and that India accounted for 85% of Bitchat's global downloads between July 17 and July 23.

The timing of the latest order is notable. It coincided with youth-led protests over changes to voter rolls. Police detained protesters in New Delhi, and authorities suspended internet service around Jantar Mantar, the capital's main protest site.

The Internet Freedom Foundation, an Indian digital rights group, called the order "unconstitutional." It argued that Section 69A is meant for unlawful content, not for blocking an app because of how it works, and noted that neither the order nor any allegedly illegal content has been made public.

Context

Section 69A orders are typically issued confidentially, which makes it difficult for affected developers or users to challenge them. Apple and Google generally comply with such orders in India.

Blocking distribution does not necessarily disable copies already installed on phones. Because Bitchat runs without central servers or an internet connection, existing installations may keep working on a local mesh even after the app leaves the stores.

What to Watch

Digital rights groups may challenge the order in court, which could force the government to justify its reasoning or disclose the order. Another question is whether Apple or Google publish details of the request through their transparency reports.

It also remains to be seen whether Dorsey or Bitchat's developers respond, and whether Indian authorities move against other offline or peer-to-peer messaging apps, such as Briar, that work the same way.