Harshit Katiyar

Developer 👨‍💻

And

A logical moron in the search of truth underlying the workings of world and its people 🌌🌟❣️

[Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) @internetfreedom]

IFF's Statement on the Sanchar Saathi App Pre-Installation Directive

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), specifically its AI & Digital Intelligence Unit (AI & DIU) on 21st November, 2024 has under the Telecommunications (Telecom Cyber Security) Rules, 2024 issued a sweeping Direction mandating the pre-installation of the Sanchar Saathi mobile application on all mobile handsets manufactured or imported for use in India. As a preliminary matter the DoT has yet to by itself disclose the full text of the direction. Initial reports by Reuters revealed it's existence and subsequently it's full text was disclosed by Medianama which form the basis of our statement, which will be followed up by RTI, analysis as well as steps, if required to support a challenge to it in a court of law.

The direction by requiring manufacturers and importers of mobile handsets to pre-install the Sanchar Saathi App represents a sharp and deeply worrying expansion of executive control over personal digital devices. The stated objective of curbing IMEI fraud and improving telecom security is, on its face, a legitimate state aim. But the means chosen are disproportionate, legally fragile, and structurally hostile to user privacy and autonomy. Clause 7(b) is the clearest expression of this. It requires that the pre-installed Sanchar Saathi application be “readily visible” and that, “its functionalities are not disabled or restricted.” In plain terms, this converts every smartphone sold in India into a vessel for state mandated software that the user cannot meaningfully refuse, control, or remove. For this to work in practice, the app will almost certainly need system level or root level access, similar to carrier or OEM system apps, so that it cannot be disabled. That design choice erodes the protections that normally prevent one app from peering into the data of others, and turns Sanchar Saathi into a permanent, non-consensual point of access sitting inside the operating system of every Indian smartphone user.

Viewed through the lens of the Supreme Court’s judgment in K.S. Puttaswamy (2017) that reaffirmed the fundamental right to privacy, this structure cannot pass the proportionality test. K.S. Puttaswamy requires that any intrusion into the right to privacy must meet the standards of legality, necessity, and proportionality. Even if we assume legality and necessity for the limited purpose of checking the genuineness of devices, the order clearly stumbles on proportionality. The government’s own ecosystem already offers less intrusive means to verify IMEI numbers and detect fake handsets such as the Sanchar Saathi web portal, SMS-based KYM (Know Your Mobile) services, and USSD codes all allow a user to perform this task without a permanent app baked into the firmware. There is no technical explanation in the order for why a one-time or occasional verification exercise justifies a resident, non-removable application with elevated privileges that lives on the phone for the lifetime of the device. Forcing a permanent app installation for a sporadic verification function is not a marginal overreach; it is a textbook example of disproportionate state action under the Puttaswamy standard.

The problems deepen when we look at the scope and safeguards. The order invokes “telecom cyber security” as a catch all justification, but it does not define the functional perimeter of the app. Clause 5 of the Directions refers to identifying acts that “endanger telecom cyber security,” an expression so vague that it invites function creep as a design feature, not a bug. Today, the app may be framed as a benign IMEI checker. Tomorrow, through a server side update, it could be repurposed for client side scanning for “banned” applications, flag VPN usage, correlate SIM activity, or trawl SMS logs in the name of fraud detection. Nothing in the order constrains these possibilities. In effect, the state is asking every smartphone user in India to accept an open ended, updatable surveillance capability on their primary personal device, and to do so without the basic guardrails that a constitutional democracy should insist on as a matter of course. IFF is deeply concerned with this direction that sets up a precedent to enforce client side scanning on all smartphones in India and calls for its recall.

As a first step we have filed a RTI with the Department of Telecom not only for a copy of this direction/order but also the underlying justification on how and why it was issued. We will fight this direction till it is rescinded.

[Arnav Gupta @championswimmer]

Indian visa appointments use client side date to check for available slots? Lol.

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

@mehulmpt You know the interesting part? the root level https://t.co/aNanDctd4s redirects to a gambling website?????

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

@NanoBanana @GeminiApp @NanoBanana generate an image of how you see yourself

[Daksh P. Jain @0xDPJ]

Hi @OfficialDMRC 👋, your backend runs with DEBUG=True, APIs are open to all IPs, and the admin panel is public.

A wrong URL exposed your entire API dump 🤦‍♂️

I emailed earlier but got no reply, so I'm posting here.

PS: As a bounty, a lifetime metro card balance would be nice 😂

[Raghav Anand @raghavanand67]

locking in

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

First talk. Excited!!!

[PyDelhi @PyDelhi]

🚀 Speaker Alert!
Excited to have Harshit Katiyar, Software Developer at SOTI, at #DjangoBash 🎤
🗒️ Talk: DIY Web Server: Peeking Under the Hood of Frameworks
📅 30th Aug 2025 | 🕛 12–5 PM
📍 Faculty of Technology, Delhi University

#pydelhi #django @djangoindiaa

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

Living two lives is so real now. The phrase "from where i come" no longer means just your home or parents or neighbours, it also means your online history, your recommendations, your youtube/instagram feed, your likes and dislikes. Everything shapes you.

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

Amazing how everything has to have a motive or meaning. We watch things for fun but "having fun" is the motive. We often keep ourselves engaged in chasing something. What happens after you reach there? What's the motive now? You cannot run forever. Staying still is tougher.

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

What are you a part of? What is your higher purpose? What do you accomplish? How do your current actions matter? At some point, it's all about planning, it always has been. Being able to see through the time is a skill. We learn it sooner or later. There's no absolute.

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

@laradesigning @excalidraw @figma This is great. I was having same query right now in excalidraw and found your tweet. Thank You!!

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

@abhisheknaironx https://t.co/sCEJ8Npsc8

[NZ ☄️ @CodeByNZ]

If backend developers touched CSS for 5 minutes, they’d stop making fun of frontend.

[Pratham @Prathkum]

Coding is still intact. You can outsource the typing and syntax to AI, but not the thinking and logic building.

[Nizzy @nizzyabi]

ai is definitely making us dumber

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

Amazing stuff i found.
https://t.co/63QuV2dt3S @svgrepo

[NZ ☄️ @CodeByNZ]

I said what I said: CSS is harder than most backend languages. 🤥

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

@adxtya_jha i created the easiest thing possible to exist and it helps me the most as a dev : a no bs in-browser text editor with auto save and another variant with md support.
https://t.co/8nco7PU6qp
I just do ctrl + T, type tedi, and good to go. No need to open anything and save a file.

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

@amritwt I think "CS" stands for "COMPUTER SCIENCE"

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

well, to my surprise, with latest updates in css, we now have a function "light-dark" in CSS, which helps us define colors for light and dark mode in a single declaration. no more media queries required for preferred color scheme.
I made use of that in wriXt.

[Harshit Katiyar @harshitt_3112]

i just published wrixt CSS. It's a fork of writ CSS with dark mode support and some other small changes. https://t.co/cJuq4nAbLA

i just wanted to implement dark mode on my portfolio already using writ css. i thought why not publish my version of writ css, and well, did it.