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RIM to allow only legal monitoring of BlackBerry data in India

RIM to allow only legal monitoring of BlackBerry data in India

By NDTV Correspondent | Updated: 6 June 2012 13:32 IST

Highlights

After setting a deadline of August 31 for BlackBerry to provide access to corporate emails and messenger services, the government will meet the Canadian maker of the device, Research In Motion (RIM).

After setting a deadline of August 31 for BlackBerry to provide access to corporate emails and messenger services, the government will meet the Canadian maker of the device, Research In Motion (RIM).

In a statement issued on Friday, RIM stated that it "has drawn a firm line" in offering "lawful access" to its services. The company says that while it supports governments all over the world in requirements that arise from national security, it cannot be asked to provide customers' encryption keys. It says it doesn't have the ability to do this anywhere in the world and that its security architecture is the same across the globe - a sign that reports that it has made concessions in countries like Saudi Arabia are incorrect. (Read: Full Text of RIM's Statement on Blackberry Battle)

RIM indicates that it is not willing to allow governments to access data sent using
BlackBerrys that security agencies in those countries wouldn't already be able to monitor if it were sent from smartphones made by competing manufacturers.

"Also driving RIM's position is the fact that strong encryption is a fundamental commercial requirement for any country to attract and maintain international business anyway and similarly strong encryption is currently used pervasively in traditional VPNs on both wired and wireless networks in order to protect corporate and government communications," its statement explains. (Watch: How BlackBerry encrypts emails)

India's ultimatum was issued hours after senior officials from government, intelligence and state-run telecom operators met to discuss how to gain access to BlackBerry content.

"If a technical solution is not provided by August 31, 2010, the government will review the position and take steps to block these two services from the network," a government spokesperson had said.

India wants access in a readable format to encrypted BlackBerry communication, on the grounds that it could be used by militants.

There are an estimated one million BlackBerry subscribers in the country.

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Further reading: BlackBerry, RIM

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RIM to allow only legal monitoring of BlackBerry data in India

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