BlackBerry Facing Ban in India

Indian government could ban the email and instant messaging services of BlackBerry smartphones in the country unless its manufacturer, Research in Motion (RIM), allows the security agencies to have access to the dada transmitted through the phones.

Indian home ministry has already given RIM an August 31 deadline to fulfill the government requirement. India is not the only country concerned with the BlackBerry smartphone on security ground. In fact, the countries like United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have already been in talks with RIM on this issue.

The kind of data protection services RIM provides to the BlackBerry users is different from other mobile phone devices. BlackBerry smartphones encrypt data transmitted by the users and its data processing channel is also different from others.

So, it is claimed that RIM’s BlackBerry phones are being used in terrorist activities. Reports suggest that the terrorists involved in the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008 also used BlackBerry services.

High officials of Indian government had a closed door meeting discussing the possible security threat posed by BlackBerry smartphones on Thursday. Officials of BSNL, a state-run telecom operator, were also present in the meeting.

A ban on BlackBerry’s email and instant messaging services would be a blow to the company as the number of BlackBerry users in India is in between 0.7 to 1 million. Moreover, India is also RIM’s fastest-growing market at the moment.

RIM has not said anything on the government decision, but it is expected that the Canadian company would soon contact the concerned authority in the country on this issue.