Penalty For Streaming PUBG Mobile Or Banned Chinese Apps, Says MeitY

Despite the ban on PUBG Mobile in India, gamers in the country have not been completely deterred from playing the popular mobile game.

Many in the community have managed to find some way or the other to stay connected to PUBG online.

Reuters

Answering the prevalent question in such circumstances, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has now confirmed that there will be no penalty handed to individuals playing the game on their devices. The same applies to users of all other Chinese apps banned by the government of India earlier this year.

In a response to an RTI filed by law student Prasoon Shekhar, the IT ministry said, ¡°Meity does not ban any app. However blocking of specified Apps was done under the provisions of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and its Rules namely Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking Access of Information by the Public) Rules, 2009. Section 69A of the Act provides for a penalty to intermediaries for non-compliance of the blocking order. However, no penalty is prescribed for individual users of such apps,¡± as quoted in a report by Inc 42.

The response essentially states that even though any users of PUBG or other such banned apps will be violating the ban, there is no penalty for the same. This exemption from penalty, however, will not save the perpetrators of the game.

This includes recorded or live content on any social media platforms that can act as the promoters of the game in India. Such intermediaries will be recognised under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act and would be penalised in case of failure to comply with the blocking order.

PUBG Mobile

A penalty would hence stand for online streamers of the banned PUBG game, which are currently accessing it through an APK file or a VPN.

If so, the legal actions will follow the ban on PUBG Mobile as well as other Chinese apps by the Indian government earlier this year citing data security and privacy threat for Indian users through these apps, amid tensions between the two countries on the borders.