Government shelves periodic web logout for chat apps, extends SIM binding to December 31

The Department of Telecommunications will no longer require messaging apps to forcibly log out web-based access points — like WhatsApp Web — every six hours. A DoT official confirmed to The Hindu that the “so-called SIM-binding directions,” which contained this mandate, would only come into force on December 31, extending compliance timelines by over nine months.

The relaxing of these directions comes weeks after the Broadband India Forum, which represents WhatsApp parent Meta as well as other tech firms like Google, warned the DoT that the directions were unconstitutional. 

The Internet and Mobile Association of India, another industry group that represents the same firms, protested that the directions would be massively disruptive to individual users who relied on services like WhatsApp Web, with little gain in security from fraudsters that the directions sought to hamper.

WhatsApp appears to be on track to eventually comply with SIM-binding directions’ main requirement, though: ensuring that users have an active SIM card corresponding to the SIM card corresponding to the phone number that they registered for the service on. That mandate has run into some practical difficulties, since Android and iOS alike typically restrict apps from directly accessing SIM data. Tech firms will now have until the end of the year to find a solution that adapts to this challenge.

The SIM-binding directions have been variously explained by government officials as a way to thwart spammers and as a restriction in response to national security threats. Officials were specifically worried about WhatsApp Web-like services, where a user can be on a completely different internet connection — perhaps abroad — and still access chats and make calls.

Now, the DoT official said, the logout requirement will not be periodic, and instead will be required on the basis of a “risk based analysis”. It is unclear if a follow-up direction formalizing this change and the date extension have been issued. When the government faced blowback for directions mandating the installation of the anti-spam Sanchar Saathi app, it walked back the mandate in announcements without publishing a follow-up direction.