India bans government employees from using VPN, Google Drive, and Dropbox: Report
India Today
The government of India has banned its employees from using third-party and non-government cloud platforms such as Google Drive and Dropbox and also VPNs.
The government of India has banned its employees from using third-party and non-government cloud platforms such as Google Drive and Dropbox. Government employees have also been restricted from using virtual private network (VPN) services. Recently, some of the popular VPN service providers like NordVPN and ExpressVPN announced to remove networks from India. The move comes following the announcement of the country’s new VPN policy.
As per several media reports, the order has been passed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and circulated to all ministries and departments. The authorities have asked all government employees to comply with the directive. The order is said to have been approved by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
The move comes into effect just a few weeks after the government announced the new VPN policy that requires VPN service providers and data centre companies to store user data for up to five years. The new policy goes against the core idea of VPNs.
In addition to VPNs and cloud services, the Indian government has also directed employees from using "unauthorised remote administration tools" like TeamViewer, AnyDesk, and Ammyy Admin, and others, Gadgets360 reported.
Government employees are also asked not to use any "external email services for official communication" and conduct "sensitive internal meetings and discussions" using "unauthorised third-party video conferencing or collaboration tools." Additionally, the Indian government has directed its employees to not use "any external mobile app-based scanner services" for "scanning internal government documents. To recall, one of the most popular document scanner apps, CamScanner, was banned in India alongside TikTok and PUBG Mobile in 2020.
The publication revealed that the government of India has also directed employees to not “jailbreak” or “root” their mobile phones. Employees are also asked to use complex passwords for their accounts as well as update passwords once in 45 days.
"All government employees, including temporary, contractual/ outsourced resources are required to strictly adhere to the guidelines mentioned in this document," the order stated. "Any non-compliance may be acted upon by the respective CISOs/ department heads,” it also noted.
