Indian BlackBerry Ban Debate Continues

In the past, India has threatened to ban the use of Research In Motion's BlackBerry unless the company addresses what Indian officials consider to be security concerns. "Our concerns are genuine," a Time magazine article quotes India's former chief of external intelligence agency Vikram Sood. "If a group of terrorists are communicating on a platform which the state has no way of accessing, then I have a problem. It's as simple as that."

This week, the proposed BlackBerry ban in India debate rages on. While RIM is working to accommodate the Indian government, a quick solution doesn't look promising as what the Indian goverment really wants is complete access to RIM's data and RIM isn't ready to comply:

RIM has said that it is impossible for it or any other third party to read encrypted data sent via its enterprise offering and that the company cannot accommodate any request for a copy of a customer’s encryption key.

After several meetings with Indian government officials, the company has proposed that it could share the IP address of BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) and the PIN and IMEI numbers of BlackBerry mobiles, a senior government official familiar with the discussions said, but added these were not sufficient.

In a statement to CBC News, RIM said:

RIM cannot accommodate any request for a copy of a customer's encryption key, since at no time does RIM, or any wireless operator or any third party, ever possess a copy of the key.

Simon Sage at IntoMobile reported on Monday that despite RIM saying that they wouldn't do any favors for the governments of any countries, sources say that RIM may be setting up three additional servers that would, in fact, satisfy Indian security requirements.


By: Bambi Blue

Bambi Blue is a freelance writer, editor, and codemonkey living in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She moonlights as a jazz musician, a social butterfly, and most apparently a weisenheimer. Loves to cook, hates to clean, and can easily be found on Twitter.