Under strong pressure from the Indian government anxious to allay national security concerns, Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry, has more or less agreed to allow Indian security agencies to monitor its services. Not that it has much choice. The governmet, after sven rounds of consultation, has given RIM a nineteen-day window (till end-August) to meet the requirements of lawful interception of its services or face a ban on some of its key offerings like emails and chats.

It is not a complete solution as definite time-frames are still to be worked out. It is work in progress, says a telecom department official. However, RIM officials maintain that they are committed to delivering highly secure and innovative products that satisfy the needs of both customers and governments. RIM's agreement to resolve India's security concerns followed shortly after UAE's Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced the suspension of BlackBerry services in the region, including email and web browsing, from October 11, 2010, unless it gets access to encrypted messages on BlackBerrys. The TRA stated that its decision was taken in light of security concerns posed by BlackBerry usage, especially since RIM was unable to align its services to the UAE's telecom regulations. The TRA further stated that the device operates beyond the jurisdiction of national laws and automatically sends data to the company's data centres in Canada rather than being processed locally. Therefore, in the current format, customers can use BlackBerry services without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns. However, recently UAE has indicated that it may hold of the ban.

In late July 2010, the Indian government revisited the issues it had with BlackBerry services in 2008, when it had threatened to block the service unless RIM provided intelligence agencies access to all data, especially email, routed through its handsets. This time around, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked RIM in no uncertain terms to address the country's security concerns by offering monitoring facilities or shut shop in India.

In a meeting attended by representatives of the MHA, the Department of Telecommunications, intelligence agencies and the National Technical Research Organisation, it was decided that the continuation of BlackBerry services in their current format was a threat to the country, and therefore, RIM needed to put in place a system that would enable security agencies to intercept data sent through BlackBerry handsets to avoid any exploitation by terrorists.

Moreover, the government again asked BlackBerry to install a proxy server in India to track data outgo and inflow more easily. According to the MHA, if RIM can address the security concerns of countries like the US and China (according to unverified reports) where it has a server, there is no reason why it cannot do the same for India. Under the current system, Indian agencies have to approach the Canadian company every time they want access, which is very time-consuming.

For Canada-based RIM, a pioneer in handheld email devices, loosening its grip and allowing the monitoring of its services is not easy, especially since tight security has been projected as its key USP over rivals such as Apple and Nokia. All BlackBerry emails are handled by the company's own enterprise servers, thereby popularising the device among companies, large enterprises, high-ranking officials, businessmen, etc. The smartphone is used by nearly a million users in India and is offered by leading telecom companies such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited.

BlackBerry's messages go through the main server in Canada, where these are encrypted. Since the server uses codes with an encryption of 256 bits, it is difficult for intelligence agencies in India to crack, intercept or decipher them. This makes India vulnerable to possible exploitation by terrorists and can lead to a national security breach.

"It is a reflection of fears of cyber security and espionage that now extend to mobile phones," stated Ron Deibert, director of the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, in a leading business daily. He helped his colleagues uncover a plot against the Indian government that involved computers in China. "It's the type of thing that will become increasingly common for RIM as they grapple with public policy and ethical issues in emerging markets," he added.