GoI seeks security access to BlackBerry services within 15 days

New Delhi: Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) and the Government of India appear headed for another face-off with the Canadian service provider being asked by the GoI to comply with formats that will allow Indian security agencies access to its services. The universally popular business phone is used by nearly a million customers in India.

Apparently, the government has allowed RIM 15 days to ensure that its email and other data services comply with 'formats that can be read by security and intelligence agencies.' Security officials recently raised an alarm over such services, according to department of telecom (DoT) officials familiar with the matter.

Reports suggest that security agencies have recently argued that the continuation of BlackBerry services in the present format present an unacceptable security risk to the country. These concerns were apparently raised at a meet chaired by home secretary GK Pillai and attended by representatives of the home ministry, DoT, intelligence agencies and the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).

In the last such face-off in 2008 the government had cleared RIM's services saying all security concerns associated with these devices had been resolved. Even then the GoI had similarly threatened discontinuation of RIM's services.

GoI had then demanded access to RIM's technology to monitor all data, especially email, routed through its handsets. It insisted that RIM put in place a system that would allow them to intercept data sent through these handsets as it feared misuse of these services by terrorists.

RIM was also asked to provide access to its algorithms so that security agencies could decipher messages. After several rounds of talks the telecom department in late-2008 had announced that the issue had been resolved.