Battlegrounds Mobile India's data sharing with China controversy: Krafton responds

Recent reports revealed that the new Battlegrounds Mobile India game from Krafton is communicating with servers in China, which is one of the reasons why PUBG Mobile was banned in the first place.

This was followed up by an update to the game, which seems to fix the issue of data sharing with China. And now Krafton has issued a statement regarding the data-sharing issue assuring that it is "implementing the industry’s toughest standards for data security".

Krafton's statement

Krafton said it is implementing the industry’s toughest standards for data security and is working to overcome any shortcomings throughout the Early Access testing period, for the official launch of BMI.

Krafton said it is taking the concerns raised seriously, and claimed that it has taken immediate, concrete actions to address this issue.

"Similar to other global mobile games and apps, Battlegrounds Mobile India also uses third party solutions to provide unique game features. In the process of using these solutions, some game data was shared to third parties," it said.

It said its privacy policy fully discloses that the app may transfer some user data, with users’ consent to the privacy policy and choosing to migrate their accounts. "No data has been shared in violation of the privacy policy."

Thus, data shared with third parties are only to enable certain game features, it claimed. Krafton said it will continue to closely monitor and protect any data being transferred to unexpected and restricted IP addresses prior to the official launch.

Risks of not implementing checks

With the reveal of the China data sharing issue, Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on India’s Data Protection Bill and BJP Member of Parliament, Meenakshi Lekhi has asked MEITY "to look into it" in her tweet. While MEITY had previously clarified that it can't ban a game before launch this new development along with pressure from other politicians might push it over the edge.

Hence it is essential that Krafton fixed all concerned issues ensuring compliance before officially launching the game in India.