Indian Navy has announced that it is banning Facebook for its personnel as well as use of smartphones at naval bases dockyards and on warships. At the same time, the Navy is also working on banning apps like WhatsApp and services run by e-commerce sites such as Amazon and Flipkart for its personnel who are on active duty.
The information about blocking of chat apps like WhatsApp and e-commerce apps comes courtesy ANI, which cites unnamed sources. In a tweet, ANI says, "Indian Navy says bans on messaging apps, networking and blogging, content sharing, hosting, e-commerce sites are under promulgation."
The new rules on the use of apps and smartphones for Navy personnel come because of the perceived risk of the leak of sensitive data. Sources toldIndia Todaythat the steps have been taken because recently seven Navy personnel were caught leaking sensitive information to enemy intelligence agencies on social media. The seven sailors were then arrested by Andhra Pradesh Police on the basis of inputs that cops received from central intelligence agencies.
The risk of smartphones and apps leaking data is quite real, although so far not much thought has been given to it by India's security agencies. Almost all apps, particularly on Android, collect and often transmit GPS data, which can reveal the location of military installations. Earlier last year it was found that using data collected by activity tracking app Strava researchers were able to find out the location of secret US military bases because army personnel at these bases were using the app to record their jogging or walking sessions.
At the same time, there is also a risk that some apps or smartphones can secretly collect data and can transmit it to servers outside India without even without any permission from a user.
Recently, New York Times wrote about how it managed to get a file that had data of over 12 million users collected over two years. Using this data, the US newspaper was able to easily pinpoint the movements of phone users. In one case, it tracked a Microsoft employee.
"In one case, we observed a change in the regular movements of a Microsoft engineer. He made a visit one Tuesday afternoon to the main Seattle campus of a Microsoft competitor, Amazon. The following month, he started a new job at Amazon. It took minutes to identify him as Ben Broili, a manager now for Amazon Prime Air, a drone delivery service," the newspaper wrote.
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