Possible Solution to Indian BlackBerry Security Problem
Canada's Research in Motion is reported to have secured an agreement with the Indian government to give their security services access to encrypted emails when requested. The deal is however conditional on the Department of Telecommunications taking full responsibility for any loss of privacy or data leakages.
The Economic Times says that RIM has agreed to hand over the private keys used to encrypt BlackBerry emails to the Indian government - if they also take responsibility for securing them. RIM officials argued that there would be a chance where important codes were exchanged on the handset which could be leaked and therefore in case of such an act, the DoT should take the responsibility.
The fuss blew up after Tata Teleservices was denied permission to provide BlackBerry services, even though other operators had been granted clearance. Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications and BPL all offer the BlackBerry in India.
India's Information Technology Act of 2000 grants the security services the right to intercept electronic communications - but as it cannot be enforced in Canada, there has been concerns that BlackBerry emails and texts would be impossible to monitor. Although it is possible to put "sniffers" inside the network gateways to record information sent to the BlackBerry servers, the information is encrypted and the security services would need access to the encryption keys to be able to read them.
BlackBerry manufacturer, Research on Motion said in a statement earlier this year: "RIM operates in more than 130 countries around the world and respects the regulatory requirements of governments. RIM does not comment on confidential regulatory matters."
On the web: Economic Times
Posted to the site on 21st May 2008
