Your WhatsApp and Telegram Will Soon Lock Without Active SIM

Government Directive Aims to Curb Cybercrime, Ignoring User Privacy, Flexibility

November 30, 2025

The government has announced a sweeping rule that will affect how you use apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and others. These apps will stop working the moment you remove your SIM card, switch phones, or try to access them on a second device without the SIM. The rule gives the government the power to link all your communication activity to your physical identity and location at all times, with no clear safeguards.

The government has ordered all OTT communication apps to enforce a new rule called SIM binding, according to Money Control.

Until now, once you verified your account on WhatsApp or similar apps, you could keep using it freely, even if you pulled out the SIM, put it in another phone, or used Wi Fi. That flexibility will soon disappear. The Department of Telecommunications says this openness creates a loophole for fraud. Cybercriminals abroad reportedly obtain Indian SIM cards, verify accounts, then toss the SIM and continue using the apps undetected over Wi Fi. Since there’s no longer a SIM in the device, and because these apps don’t check for the SIM regularly, it’s hard for investigators to trace where these criminals are.

By forcing the app to shut down unless the correct SIM is physically present, the government believes it will become easier to catch such offenders.

From a security and enforcement angle, this may sound reasonable. The telecom industry supports it too. Their argument is that apps like WhatsApp only verify your SIM once, and that’s during installation. After that, the app continues to function whether or not the SIM is still active or even present. So if someone gets hold of an old number, or uses a deactivated SIM temporarily, they can continue chatting, spamming or scamming with no checks in place.

The idea now is to force apps to regularly look for the correct SIM card. If it’s missing, the app must lock itself immediately.

There’s more.

If you use WhatsApp Web on your laptop or desktop, you’ll be forcibly logged out every six hours. To log in again, you’ll have to re-authenticate by scanning a QR code through your phone. The supposed intention here is to prevent long-term sessions on web browsers that may fall into the wrong hands.

On paper, this move is being pitched as a way to make cyberspace safer. But as someone who understands how these systems work, the logic appears to be flawed and the consequences worrying.

The government’s assumption is that if a messaging account is always tied to a physical SIM, that account is traceable. But that isn’t really how criminal fraud works. Many fraudsters already buy SIMs using fake documents, use them briefly, then discard them. Binding an app to a SIM won’t stop this behaviour. Instead, it may just give a false sense of security.

Moreover, India’s telecom system already requires Know Your Customer (KYC) norms, sometimes with live video verification and AI-based fraud checks. Despite that, scams persist. So perhaps the problem isn’t that apps don’t check SIMs frequently, but that SIMs are still too easy to obtain fraudulently.

A deeper concern is about what this rule means for the average person. This rule quietly tightens the grip the state has over our private communication. If all our chats are now tied to our SIM card, and the app stops working unless that SIM is in place, then the device we’re using and our location become traceable at all times. It closes the door on anonymous or pseudonymous communication, a lifeline for journalists, whistleblowers, activists, and even people fleeing domestic abuse.

Not everyone using a second device is a criminal. Many people swap phones, travel internationally with roaming off, or use their apps through Wi Fi on tablets. All of that will now become difficult or impossible.

Also, let’s not overlook that frequent SIM checks and six-hour logouts will create friction for millions of users. Not just for those using dual SIM setups or second devices, but for anyone whose SIM briefly loses network, like in remote areas or during travel. Our app may log us out, and we’ll have to reauthenticate repeatedly. This may not matter to someone who uses WhatsApp casually on one phone. But for professionals, business owners or creators who use multiple devices, this may break their workflows.

What’s more alarming is the creeping expansion of surveillance under the guise of security. In democracies, traceability must always be weighed against privacy. Here, the government is not just increasing its capacity to track bad actors, it is also creating the infrastructure to monitor everyone, without public debate, without legislative process and without any mention of safeguards. This sets a dangerous precedent.

Laws around surveillance, interception and personal data protection are already weak or missing in India. In such a context, forcing all communication apps to bind themselves to a physical identity gives enormous unchecked power to the state.

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