RIM gives Indian government access to customers’ private communications

BlackBerry maker RIM gives the Indian government the ability to eavesdrop on BlackBerry users’ private communications. RIM also places a server in India. With this, the company averts a ban on its smartphones.

The Indian government threatened to ban BlackBerrys if RIM did not comply with the demands. The Indian newspaper India Times reports that over the next two months it will be examined whether the proposals made by RIM are sufficient. A ban as of 1 September will therefore not take place. It is still unclear whether the Indian government will ban smartphones in the long term.

The government will have the ability to intercept and decrypt communications between BlackBerry users. This is done, among other things, because the data no longer has to leave the country; RIM is going to place a server in the country. BlackBerrys use encryption to protect user data.

The reason the Indian government wanted access to the data is security. According to the authorities, terrorists were able to prepare an attack unnoticed last year because they used BlackBerrys. RIM is committed to protecting the privacy of its users, because security is the reason many people buy a BlackBerry.

It seems that the government will only have access to communications that run through BlackBerry Internet Server. RIM claims it does not have a master key to decrypt communications through BlackBerry Enterprise Server, a service that allows companies to use their own server. In addition, India would become less attractive to large companies using BES, as trade secrets could be intercepted.

RIM has recently been under intense pressure in some countries to provide access to secure data traffic. Earlier, the smartphone maker gave in to demands from the Saudi Arabian government and the company is still in talks with other governments.