New Delhi: The Union government has scrambled to deny a Reuters report that it has proposed a requirement for smartphone makers to share devices’ source code with it, which is the underlying programming instructions of a phone. Privacy and transparency activists on the other hand have called out the government for holding bilateral discussions with smartphone manufacturers without public consultation and said the proposals effectively erode the concept of ownership.In a statement, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) Fact Check handle on X (formerly Twitter) said on Sunday (January 11) that the Reuters report claiming that India is proposing forcing smartphone manufacturers to share their source code as part of a security overhaul, is “fake”.“The Government of India has NOT proposed any measure to force smartphone manufacturers to share their source code,” the PIB Fact Check statement said.“The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has started the process of stakeholders’ consultations to devise the most appropriate regulatory framework for mobile security. This is a part of regular and routine consultations with the industry for any safety or security standards. Once a stakeholder consultation is done, then various aspects of security standards are discussed with the industry. No final regulations have been framed, and any future framework will be formulated only after due consultations,” it added.A news report by @Reuters claims that India proposes forcing smartphone manufacturers to share their source code as part of a security overhaul.🔍 #PIBFactCheck❌ This claim is #FAKE▶️ The Government of India has NOT proposed any measure to force smartphone manufacturers to… pic.twitter.com/0bnw0KQL9Q— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) January 11, 2026Reuters reported that software makers have countered a package of 83 security standards that include sharing source code, and alerting the government to major software updates. The report said that the Indian Telecom Security Assurance Requirements also include that the codes would be analysed and possibly tested in Indian labs. It also said that the government proposal includes a requirement for companies to make software changes to allow pre-installed apps to be uninstalled and to block apps from using cameras and microphones in the background to “avoid malicious usage”.The report analysed IT ministry documents that detailed the meetings with Apple, Samsung, Google and Xiaomi during which smartphone makers raised concerns that globally security requirements have not been mandated by any country.The proposals from the Indian government also include mandating automatic and periodic malware scanning on phones, with device makers having to inform the National Centre for Communication Security about major software updates and security patches before releasing them to users, and the centre would have the right to test them, the report said.In a statement the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) said that Indian Telecom Security Assurance Requirements revealed in the Reuters reports, while publicly available have not been put to public consultation by the Department of Telecommunications and as per the Reuters reports are being considered by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to be made mandatory through notification.“There is no clear statutory basis for these proposals, nor any evidence of meaningful public consultation and the entire exercise for their creation is being done as a bilateral discussion between the Union Government and smartphone manufacturers. From a constitutional perspective, the Supreme Court of India’s ruling in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India affirms that informational privacy is a fundamental right and that any State intrusion must satisfy tests of legality, necessity, and proportionality,” the IFF statement said.‘Technically unsound and dangerous’The IFF said that the requirement for manufacturers to provide proprietary source code for review by government-designated labs is “technically unsound and dangerous”.“Centralising the source code of the world’s most popular operating systems to be held by the government creates a ‘honeypot’ for state and non-state cyber attackers. If compromised, the security of every Android and iOS device in the country could be broken. Further, a 12-month record of login attempts and app installations creates a high-resolution map of a user’s private life, associations, and interests. This violates the purpose limitation principle of data protection,” it said.It also said that requiring notifying the government about software updates is counter productive as security patches are time sensitive and requiring government pre-approval introduces a bureaucratic delay during which users remain vulnerable to active exploits.“Collectively, the proposals seek to micromanage how users interact with their own devices, effectively eroding the concept of ownership.”Separately the New Indian Express has reported that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is set to write to television manufacturers, urging them to pre-install WAVES, Prasar Bharati’s over-the-top (OTT) application on smart TVs.This comes weeks after the government asked smartphone manufacturers to pre-install its own cybersecurity software Sanchar Saathi on smartphones but rolled back the order following pushback and criticism from smartphone makers, activists and opposition parties.