Faced with Tuesday’s government deadline, BlackBerry mobile phone maker Research In Motion (RIM) on Monday gave in promising access to Indian security agencies to monitor all its services with immediate effect.
Nearly two months after insisting that it does not have the provision to grant access for such monitoring, RIM made certain proposals for lawful access of BlackBerry Enterprise Services (BES) and BlackBerry Messenger Services (BBM) by the law enforcement agencies.
The Department of Telecommunication would now study the feasibility of all such services being provided through a server in India. The Home Ministry will review the security issue relating to Blackberry services within 60 days by which time DoT will submit its report.
RIM's response came after the Home Ministry made it clear that Blackberry has to shut down its operations in the country from September one if it failed to provide access to monitoring of its messenger services.
"RIM has made certain proposals for lawful access by law enforcement agencies and this would be operationalised immediately. The feasibility of the solutions offered would be assessed thereafter," a Home Ministry statement said.
The Ministry has made it clear that any communication through the telecom networks should be accessible to the law enforcement agencies and all telecom service providers including third-parties have to comply with this, it said.
India, which struggles with a host of home-grown insurgencies and threats from terror groups based in neighbouring Pakistan, has been worried that BlackBerry phones could be used by militants.
BlackBerry has about a million subscribers in India and the services are growing. Nine telecom operators including government owned BSNL and MTNL, Airtel, Vodafone, RCom and Tatas offer BlackBerry services.
Courtesy : NDTV
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