New Delhi, Dec. 2 -- Congress MP KC Venugopal termed the Department of Telecommunications' (DoT) directions mandating the pre-installation of Sanchar Saathi application for mobile handsets, as a "dystopian tool" for surveillance.

The DoT has issued directions mandating the Sanchar Saathi App in mobile phones while directing the manufacturers and importers to ensure that the application is readily visible and accessible to the end users at the time of first use or device setup and is not disabled or restricted. For devices that have already been manufactured and are currently in sales channels across the country, manufacturers and importers have been asked to make efforts to push the application via software updates.

In a post , Venugopa...