HIGHLIGHTS

  1. SAI has been vetted by CERT-in empaneled auditor and Army Cyber Group
  2. Process for filing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) is in progress
  3. SAI to be utilised pan Army to facilitate messaging within the service
  4. Indian Army's newly developed messaging application is also in line with PM Narendra Modi's call for `Atmanirbhar Bharat`. 
  5. 'Indian Army has developed an indigenous end-to-end encrypted voice, text, and video calling app for Android platform', Ministry of Defence said on Thursday.


Secure Application for Internet (SAI) was developed by Col Sai Shankar and has been tested by the government’s nodal agency CERT-in empanelled auditor and Army Cyber Group. 


The process for filing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), hosting the infrastructure on NIC and developing the application for iOS platform is under process. 


“This application is same as like WhatsApp, Telegram, SAMVAD and GIMS and uses end-to-end encryption messaging protocol. SAI scores over on security features with local in-house servers and coding, which can be tweaked as per requirements,” said the ministry.

The Indian Army has been proactive against the use of commercial social media applications by its personnel to avoid any data or information leaks or theft. Soon after the ban on 59 Chinese origin apps by the Indian government, the Indian Army had also asked its soldiers to delete 89 apps from their smartphones including Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, WeChat, PUBG, Vigo, and Tinder.

To recall, WhatsApp and Indian government were engaged in a legal battle over the issue of traceability of messages on its platform. During the incident, the government had hinted about launching its own instant messaging service for smartphones called GIMS. It has been developed by the National Informatics Centre to provide infrastructure to help support the delivery of government IT services.

    According to the statement, the application has been vetted by CERT-in empaneled auditor and Army Cyber Group, and the process for filing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) hosting the infrastructure on NIC and working on iOS platform is currently in progress.

Blog writer - SHANTANU CHAVAN