Battlegrounds Mobile India Found Sending Data to Chinese Servers

Krafton finallyopened the early accessfor itsPUBG Mobile alternativeBattlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) in India for all Android users recently. Now, it has been found that BGMI is allegedly sending data of Indian Android players to various Chinese servers, including one owned by Tencent.

Now, for the unaware, the Indian governmentbanned the uber-popular title PUBG Mobile in Indialast year due to security reasons. Following the ban, Krafton, the parent company of PUBG Mobile,started teasing an alternative versionthat did not have any involvement by a Chinese company late last year. The developers then finally released Battlegrounds Mobile India, andhere’s how you can install it right nowif you haven’t already.

However, as per a recentreportfromIGN India, the data of Indian players is being sent to Chinese servers located in Beijing. The game also has ties with the Tencent-owned Proxima Beta located in Hong Kong (this could possibly be to enablePUBG Mobile account transfer to Battlegrounds Mobile India), as well as Microsoft Azure servers in the US, Mumbai, and Moscow.

IGNdiscovered the game’s links to China by installing a data packet sniffer app on an Android device before playing a match of BGMI. The data sniffer app was set to log all the servers that the game communicates with during a match. Following this, the publication did a whois search, which is a search engine for tracking the origin of an IP address, for the logged servers.Image Courtesy: IGN India

Plus, one of the notable servers with which Battlegrounds Mobile India communicates the most while playing the game is run by the Chinese state-owned company China Mobile Communications and is located in Beijing, China. Moreover, when the game boots up, it allegedly pings a Tencent server that is also located in Beijing.

Arjun Sha from our team corroborated the report, withPi-hole set up on his Raspberry Pi 4intercepting connections to Proxima Beta servers. He used Play Games to log into the game and did not transfer his PUBG Mobile account over to Battlegrounds Mobile India. You can check outArjun’s tweet right here.

Now, it is worth mentioning that when Krafton announced to launch BGMI in India, it encouraged influencers and streamers tonot associate or relate the title with its banned-in-India counterpartPUBG Mobile due to geopolitical tensions between India and China. The developers also agreed to comply with the local laws and claimed to cut ties with Tencent.

However, it seems likeKrafton did not live up to its promises, and its PUBG Mobile alternative is not that different from the banned title. Moreover, we already know that even Battlegrounds Mobile India wassought to be banned in India by a party leaderprior to its early access release. So, it will be interesting to see how the Indian government reacts when it discovers Krafton’s sneaky initiative to send data to China.

Beebom Staff

Bringing the latest in technology, gaming, and entertainment is our superhero team of staff writers. They have a keen eye for latest stories, happenings, and even memes for tech enthusiasts.

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