The Indian Governments Developed GIMS Messenger To Replace WhatsApp

In November 2019, several people in India suffered from hacks on WhatsApp by Pegasus, the Israeli software developed by the NSO group for stealing confidential data.

The matter was spotted by the Threat Analysis Group of Google, warning over 12,000 users around the world. Among the affected users, 500 were from India.

Government officials found this incident alarming as most Indians communicated on WhatsApp, which put them at the risk of data hacks. As a result, the central government wants to develop a messaging platform for communication among officials while avoiding data leaks.

The app is called Government Instant Messaging Service (GIMS), first reported by Financial Times. The development of this platform was guided by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Officials who work in the state and central government will use this app as a replacement for WhatsApp.

The team behind the new app is situated at Kerela-based National Informatics Centre, using the tech infrastructure provided by MeitY.

Besides government officials, every Indian can use this app too. It’s currently undergoing tests in the beta phase and will be available for download on the App Store and Google Play Store.

GIMS will offer similar texting features to WhatsApp, allowing its users to share documents, images, apart from traditional text messages.

The app is being tested with 17 government organizations like the Indian Railways, Indian Navy, Ministry of Home Affairs, and Ministry of External Affairs, etc., involving 6,600 officials. There have been more than 20 lakh messages shared on the platform so far. GIMS supports Hindi, English, as well as 11 regional languages.

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