In the quest for 'Atmanirbhar Bharat', the Indian Army has developed a simple and secure messaging application named the "Secure Application for Internet (SAI)", an official statement said.

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 the Android platform over the internet, it said.

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 empaneled auditor and Army Cyber Group.  The process for filing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), hosting the infrastructure on NIC, and working on the iOS platform is currently in progress, the statement added.

In July, the Army had banned popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, along with messaging platforms and video hosting apps like ByteDance product TikTok and content sharing tools like Xender and Shareit for use among its personnel.