Indian Army launches secure messaging app for its soldiers

NEW DELHI: The Indian Army on Thursday launched a messaging app called SAI that will provide secure voice, text and video calling services to its soldiers. "The model (of SAI) is similar to commercially available messaging applications like WhatsApp, Telegram, SAMVAD and GIMS and utilises end-to-end encryption messaging protocol," the Indian Army said in a statement.

The Army developed and named the messaging app as SAI, which stands for Secure Application for Internet. "SAI will be utilised pan Army to facilitate secure messaging within the service...The application supports end-to-end secure voice, text and video calling services for Android platform over internet," the statement noted.

SAI scores over on security features with local in-house servers and coding which can be tweaked as per requirements, it said. The application has been vetted by CERT-in empanelled auditor and the Army Cyber Group, it noted.