The country’s 1.2-million BlackBerry users — and those waiting to buy one — will heave a sigh of relief as Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the smart phone, today dodged a ban in India by offering to set up a server in the country and immediately offer full data access to security agencies.
The offer came in the nick of time, a day before the home ministry’s deadline for RIM to either give full access to its enterprise emails and messenger services or face a ban. It also coincides with an offer by rival Nokia, whose push-mail service has been under the scanner, to set up a server in the country in an apparent bid to lure corporate users as uncertainty loomed over BlackBerry.
Once installed, this will be only the third server outside RIM’s home country, Canada. Senior home ministry officials believe that RIM has servers in China and the US, but the company has so far denied these suspicions. RIM has a total subscriber base of 41 million worldwide.
“RIM has made certain proposals for lawful access by law enforcement agencies and these would be operationalised immediately,” the home ministry said in a statement. “The feasibility of the solutions offered would be assessed thereafter.”
The review will be in 60 days, after the department of telecommunications submits a report on the solution. Today’s decision was taken in an internal meeting headed by Home Secretary GK Pillai, along with officials of the Intelligence Bureau, National Technical Research Organisation and representatives of the country’s internal security apparatus.
RIM uses powerful codes to encrypt email messages as they travel between a BlackBerry device and a computer known as a BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which is designed to secure these emails. The home ministry has made it clear that any communication through telecom networks should be accessible to law enforcement agencies.
DoT had instructed telecom service providers to ensure that a technical solution for interception and monitoring of BlackBerry services in readable format was made available to law enforcing agencies by the August 31 deadline.
Similar security concerns were also raised in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Saudi Arabian government has already allowed BlackBerry messenger services to continue, following the resolution of some of its regulatory requirements. However, the UAE has set a deadline of October 11 to ban BlackBerry's messenger, email and web browsing services.
