India has ordered Apple and Google to remove Bitchat, an offline messaging application developed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, from their Indian app stores. The action was taken under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, amid concerns that the application enables anonymous communications outside conventional telecommunications networks.

Apple’s App Review team told Dorsey in an email on Saturday that Bitchat “will be removed from the India App Store” following a demand from India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), according to a copy of the email posted by Dorsey on X. By the same day, Bitchat was no longer available on Google Play in India, while the application’s website was reportedly inaccessible on several Indian networks.

MeitY, Apple and Google had not publicly commented on the removal at the time of the report. The development was also covered in Apple Removes Jack Dorsey’s BitChat from India App Store After Government Demand.

Bitchat uses Bluetooth to let nearby phones communicate directly, with messages relayed from one device to another through a mesh network. The application does not require a SIM card, phone number or internet connection, and private messages are encrypted end to end.

The technology drew increased attention in India after mobile internet access was suspended around a student protest in central Delhi in July. Indian downloads of Bitchat increased 32-fold on July 19, 2026. India accounted for about 85% of the application’s global downloads between July 17 and July 23, compared with roughly 1% during the preceding month.

On July 23, 2026, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), which is part of the Home Ministry, issued a notice to GitHub naming three repositories associated with Bitchat and giving the platform three hours to act. The episode was also reported in India Orders Github Takedown of Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat Following Protests.

The notice cited Bitchat’s ability to facilitate anonymous communication without registration or phone-number verification and without central logs. According to the notice, those features impeded lawful interception and allowed the application to continue operating during internet shutdowns.

Bitchat’s code was subsequently copied to other locations, while the number of daily users in India exceeded 330,000 the following day.

The government later invoked Section 69A, which allows authorities to order the blocking of public access to information on grounds including the sovereignty and integrity of India, the defence and security of the state, public order and the prevention of incitement to cognizable offences. India’s Supreme Court upheld the provision in its 2015 judgment in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, which also established procedural safeguards for blocking orders.

The Bitchat case highlights a challenge for Indian authorities because conventional lawful-interception measures generally rely on identifiable telecommunications operators, subscriber information and centralised communications records. Bitchat’s decentralised design removes many of those points of control: devices communicate directly over Bluetooth and relay messages between nearby phones.

The application’s reach nevertheless remains geographically limited by the range of Bluetooth communications and the density of participating devices.

Bitchat was previously removed from Apple’s App Store in China after authorities there ordered its removal under rules covering services capable of “social mobilisation.” The earlier action was reported in BitChat Removed from the China Apple App Store Due to ‘Illegal Content’.

India is also seeking greater control over communications technologies that operate outside traditional telecommunications infrastructure. The removal of Bitchat comes as India continues to regulate Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Starlink has agreed to requirements including establishing gateways in India, keeping user data in the country and providing interception capabilities. Its final security clearance remained pending as of June 2026.

For iPhone users, removing Bitchat from the App Store effectively prevents normal installation of the application. Android users can potentially install the publicly available software from outside Google Play. Android devices accounted for roughly three-quarters of Bitchat downloads in India in July 2026, according to the figures cited in the analysis.

The episode also raises questions about the use of internet shutdowns in India. Bitchat’s share of global downloads rose from about 1% before the July shutdowns to 85% during the week when internet access was disrupted around the Delhi protest.

Bitchat’s underlying mesh technology could have applications beyond protest communications, including disaster response in areas where mobile networks have been disrupted by floods, cyclones or other emergencies. The case places India’s security concerns alongside a broader question over how governments regulate decentralised communication tools that can operate without conventional telecommunications infrastructure.

The application’s other use cases were discussed in How BitChat is Used to Keep Everyone Connected During Internet Blackouts.

Source: BitcoinKE