Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras-incubated firm has developed an Indigenous Mobile Operating System that aims to benefit India’s 100 crore mobile phone users. The operating system called ‘BharOS,’ provides a secure environment for users and can be installed on commercial off-the-shelf handsets, an official release said.
As per the release, BharOS Service is meant for 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, it added.
BharOS was developed by JandK Operations Private Limited (JandKops), which has been incubated by IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation, a Section 8 (Not for Profit) company established by IIT Madras. The Foundation is funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, under its National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NMICPS). It aspires to put India on par with those few countries that currently possess such capabilities, the release said.
“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,” V. Kamakoti, director, IIT Madras, said.
Furthermore, the release mentioned that BharOS comes with No Default Apps (NDA). This 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, it said.