Research in Motion company, maker of Blackberry stated that “they are willing to work with India to support the country’s need for lawful access to encrypted services”.
The release of BlackBerry’s encrypted email and messaging services in India depends on the meeting which will be held on Thursday between the company and the security agencies. RIM and the Indian government are holding last-minute talks ahead of a 31 August deadline, after which there will be a ban on the device.
India wants to use the ability to monitor secure e-mail and instant messaging services provided by the firm.
It is believed by many countries that Blackberry services are a threat to national security. Blackberry handsets automatically jumble messages and send them to servers in Canada and other countries. Authorities demands access to these messages and the required keys to decrypt them to oppose terrorism and criminal activity.
RIM says that banning Blackberry would be ineffective and counter-productive as many other networks used similar encryption techniques.RIM ensures that it does not have any master key or any back door exists in the system that would allow RIM or any third party, under any circumstances, to gain access to encrypted corporate information.
“Services which can not be intercepted and monitored in readable format may be banned by the government”, said Shri Sachin Pilot, the Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology.
Formal notices have been sent to the country’s mobile operators telling them they must have equipment to monitor Blackberry services by 31 August.
Not much time is left for the Canada’s Research in Motion, to give the Indian government the means to track and read its secure email and instant messaging services that officials fear have the potential to be misused by militants and to create political instability.
About 1 million people in India are using Blackberry services. A shutdown will come as a blow to the users. It is expected that the news regarding the issue will be out soon.