New Delhi, Oct 29 (IANS): The Indian Army has developed an end-to-end encryption messaging application for its own consumption.

Earlier this year, the army had issued an order banning 89 applications for its personnel owing to security reasons. Army personnel were asked to delete popular apps such as Facebook, Truecaller, Instagram and games like PUBG from their mobile phones.

On Thursday, the Indian Army said in a statement that in the quest for 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat', the force has developed a simple and secure messaging application named the "Secure Application for Internet (SAI)".

The application supports end-to-end secure voice, text and video calling services for Android platforms over internet.

The model is similar to commercially available messaging applications like WhatsApp, Telegram, SAMVAD and GIMS and utilises end-to-end encryption messaging protocol.

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

The process for filing Intellectual Property Rights, hosting the infrastructure on NIC and working on iOS platform is currently in progress. SAI will be utilised pan Army to facilitate secure messaging within the service.

After reviewing the functionalities of the application Defence Minister Rajnath Singh complimented Colonel Sai Shankar for his skill and ingenuity in developing the application.