NEW DELHI: India wants the Canadian company Research in Motion (RIM), makers of BlackBerry, to address its security concerns or face closure. Essentially, India wants the handset-maker to allow it to set up a monitoring facility here with Indian access to its encryption technology, which it needs for security reasons, a fact recently flagged by security agencies.
This is the second time that the government has threatened to block the operations of BlackBerry. In the earlier instance, tensions were defused after RIM agreed to provide its encryption code to security agencies burdened with having to monitor the chatter among increasingly tech-savvy terrorists.
The fresh confrontation comes after reports that RIM was ready to set up a server in China to address Chinese security concerns.
The home ministry has asked the department of telecommunication (DoT) to check the veracity of reports of a server being set up in China and then press the Canadian company to do the same in India.
According to security agencies, this will help India monitor email and SMS traffic on these popular phones. In the current system, Indian agencies have to approach the Canadian company every time it wants access, which is time-consuming and ultimately, they feel, counter-productive.
Sources in government say that security agencies have reasons to resent their inability to access the details of BlackBerry subscribers, because of their experience with the satellite phone Thuraya. Thuraya's refusal to share their codes with Indian security agencies have encouraged terrorists in J&K as well as those behind the 26/11 attacks to exploit the chink.
A senior government official said, "Though RIM has been fully cooperating ever since the matter was taken up with it in 2008, reports of the company's move to set up a server in China forced us to look at it in a different way".
Officials here believe that if the Canadian company can take care of China's concerns by reportedly setting up a server there, it can do the same for India which is an equally big market for BlackBerry.
The Times of India
