Decision on BlackBerry ban likely today
30 Aug 2010
Top government officials are meeting today to decide whether or not to impose a ban on some of the main services of the BlackBerry smartphone, as the deadline given to its manufacturer to meet Indian security concerns expires.
Home secretary G K Pillai will meet officials from National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), Intelligence Bureau and the Department of Telecom (DoT) to take a final decision on the issue. Reports say Pillai may also meet representatives of Research In Motion (RIM), the Canadian manufacturer of BlackBerry.
BlackBerry users send and receive data like e-mail through servers located overseas. The government has asked RIM to provide access to data such as e-mail sent through the phone by 31 August or face a ban on its data services. The home ministry had told the telecommunications ministry that if the security concerns are not addressed, the service should be stopped immediately.
In a bid to break the logjam, the smartphone maker had offered to provide information on a deferred basis. But the government has asked RIM to provide a "master key" to gain access to encrypted corporate information on a real time basis. RIM has said that company cannot do this as it does not have a master key to gain access to encrypted corporate information.
The smartphone has one million subscribers in India.
Without disclosing the kind of solution provided by RIM during its two days of consultations with security agencies and telecom ministry officials last week, government officials have said that experts are hopeful of some result in the case of BlackBerry messenger service.
