Battlegrounds Mobile India: Parent’s Consent Needed for Under-18 Players on PUBG Mobile India’s New Avatar

Battlegrounds Mobile India has been announced as the Indian version of PUBG Mobile and it comes with some new privacy policy criterion. South Korean publisher Krafton has stated that players under 18 years of age will need to share a parent or guardian's phone number to be able to play the game. This is probably one of the several changes the company had to incorporate to make Battlegrounds Mobile India available to the Indian audience. As of now, the developers have not shared a release date for the game.

To recall, PUBG Mobile was banned in India along with 117 other apps back in September 2020 and since then, Krafton has been making efforts to re-release the game in the Indian market. Now, finally it looks like it has succeeded with Battlegrounds Mobile India – a dedicated and exclusive game for the Indian market. Several months ago, the developers had shared they will be making several changes to the Indian version of the game and one of these changes has been revealed as part of the new privacy policy.

Players who are under 18 years of age will have to provide a parent or guardian's phone number to be able to play Battlegrounds Mobile India, as mentioned on the game's official website. A reason for this could be that the original PUBG Mobile game was criticised by parents for being violent. With the new privacy policy, parents will have control over their children who are under the age of 18 and will be able to decide if they get to play the game or not.

“When you play our game we do not knowingly collect, use or share any personal information for those who are under 18 years of age without verifiable parental consent or as permitted by law. If you are under 18 years of age, you will be asked to provide the mobile phone number of your parent or guardian to confirm that you are legally eligible to play the game,” the policy reads. Parents or guardians who feel that their child has provided personal information without their consent can contact the developers and request for the information to be deleted from the system, it adds.

In terms of what information is collected, the policy states the developers does not collect information directly from the player. Details like device information, IP address, browsing behaviour while using the site and/or services are automatically collected.

Battlegrounds Mobile India has a new logo with orange, white, and green colours, representing the Indian national flag. It will bring a series of India specific in-game events at launch that will be announced later. It will be up for pre-registration before launch.