RIM wins two-month reprieve in India
Government testing new monitoring software and asking for local server
Published: 31 August, 2010
READ MORE: India | Research In Motion | Security
RIM has won a temporary stay of execution in India for its email and messaging services. The government, which had threatened to ban BlackBerry because of claimed national security risks, has now agreed to give RIM two months' grace while it tests a new fix.
RIM has offered monitoring technology as a solution to the dispute. India and other governments want a key to crack the encryption on the famously secure BlackBerry email, especially as these are hosted abroad. RIM says only customers have such a key and it needs to find a compromise that would keep its services legal in important growth markets like India, but also keep its reputation for maximum email security intact.
The Indian Department of Telecommunication will evaluate RIM's technical solution for 60 days to decide whether it gives sufficient access to BlackBerry email and messaging systems to satisfy security agencies. A government spokesperson confirmed the deal just hours before the services were due to be banned under a ruling of early August. According to The Wall Street Journal, Kedia said the solution involves a server located in India. This is thought to be a feature of compromises with other governments, though officially RIM has said it never supplied such local servers.
Nokia has reportedly already agreed to set up localized servers for its enterprise email by November. The Indian government also plans to serve Google and Skype with notices to set up local servers in India for the same purposes. Both will also be under heavy pressure to comply because of the size and growth of this market, where 3G roll-out is about to get under way. Even before this stage, India already has an estimated one million BlackBerry users.
However, RIM is not giving in without a fight, and last week it slammed India's increasingly strict communications security laws, claiming they would thwart the country's progress as a global business market.
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