Indigenous mobile software BharOS launched

‘BharOS’, an indigenous mobile operating system developed by a firm incubated by the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, was introduced on Thursday which can be installed on commercial off-the-shelf handsets.

The services of BharOS are currently being provided to organisations that have stringent privacy and security requirements whose users handle sensitive information that requires confidential communications on restricted apps on mobiles. Such users require access to private cloud services through private 5G networks.

The software was developed by JandK Operations Private Limited (JandKops), incubated by IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation.

“BharOS Service is a Mobile Operating System built on a foundation of trust, with a focus on providing users more freedom, control, and flexibility to choose and use only the apps that fit their needs. This innovative system promises to revolutionise the way users think about security and privacy on their mobile devices,” Prof V Kamakoti, Director, IIT-M, said.

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He also said the institute looks forward to working closely with many more private industries, government agencies, strategic agencies and Telecom Service Providers to increase the usage and adoption of the software in India.

BharOS comes with No Default Apps (NDA) which means that users are not forced to use apps that they may not be familiar with or that they may not trust. Additionally, this approach allows users to have more control over the permissions that apps have on their device, as they can choose to only allow apps that they trust to access certain features or data on their device.

“In addition, BharOS offers ‘Native Over The Air’ (NOTA) updates that can help to keep the devices secure. NOTA updates are automatically downloaded and installed on the device, without the need for the user to manually initiate the process,” Karthik Ayyar, Director, JandK Operations Pvt Ltd, said.

BharOS provides access to trusted apps from organisation-specific Private App Store Services (PASS). A PASS provides access to a curated list of apps that have been thoroughly vetted and have met certain security and privacy standards of organisations. This means users can be confident that the apps they are installing are safe to use and have been checked for any potential security vulnerabilities or privacy concerns, the institute said.