Popular VLC Media Player banned in India: Report | Tech News

Popular VLC Media Player banned in India: Report

  • VLC Media Player has been banned in India, according to a report. This happened quite a few months ago at the time when the Indian government had banned some 54 China-linked apps.

By: HT TECH
| Updated on: Aug 14 2022, 00:01 IST
BANNED! Call Recording apps BANNED on Google Play Store
VLC Media Player
1/5 According to The Sun, different laws are in practice around the world. In places like US and Germany, call recording is allowed but requires that the other person must be aware and consent is taken from him or her. (Pixabay)
VLC Media Player
2/5 In the UK, call recording is allowed, but only for personal use. It requires consent if the recording is meant to be sold to a third party or publicly released. The laws are even state specific in the US. For example, in Arizona, call recording is allowed if you are the bill payer and you own the phone. (Pixabay)
VLC Media Player
3/5 There is also a growing concern that call recording can result in privacy breach. In the past, Google had banned a part required to make recordings by developers, although a loophole existed. But this time, Google has decided to ban it altogether for good and it will close the loophole on May 11. (Pixabay)
VLC Media Player
4/5 Therefore, after May 11, only call recording that would be allowed is from the phone’s in-built call recorder. Therefore, devices like Xiaomi and Pixel will continue to offer call recording functionality, according to The Sun. This is because these devices alert the user that the call is being recorded. (Pixabay)
VLC Media Player
5/5 Google announced that "If the app is the default dialler on the phone and also pre-loaded, accessibility capability is not required to get access to the incoming audio stream, and hence, will not be in violation.” (Pixabay)
VLC Media Player
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A report by MediaNama said that VLC Media Player stands banned in India. (Pixabay)

VLC Media Player has been banned in India, according to a report. This happened some 6 months ago. However, the app is still available on Google Play Store and App Store for anyone to download. Also, if you have the player installed, you can play it without a hitch even as the website, www.videolan.org, has been taken down. Notably, there is no official word about it from the government sources or the company. Its biggest USP was that it was free and performed basic tasks adequately well. It also supported various media formats. Also read: Do you use VLC Media Player? Beware!

A report by MediaNama said that VLC Media Player stands banned in India. It indicated that the ban was imposed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under the Information Technology Act 2020. Also read: 54 Chinese apps banned in India

According to some reports, the reason behind the ban on VLC Media Player was its links to China and the allegations indicated that Indian user data was being sent abroad. Not just that, it was also indicated that Chinese hackers were pushing malware and launching cyber attacks through it.

In the same period that the VLC Media Player was banned, the Indian government had also banned some of the top rated and popular websites in the country linked to China citing threat to national security from them. The number of entities banned was 54. However, VLC Media Player is not Chinese, but was likely targetted due to its links with that country. The player was actually started in France.

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First Published Date: 13 Aug, 23:57 IST
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