India threatens to ban BlackBerry over corporate email access
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 18 March 2011, 11:49 IST   |    4 Comments
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India threatens to ban BlackBerry over corporate email access
New Delhi: Expressing dissatisfaction over Research In Motion's stand on accessing of its enterprise email, the Indian government has given a March 31 deadline to the Blackberry maker to provide a working solution for the encrypted corporate emails. India's Minister of State for Communications and IT, Sachin Pilot said in a written answer in the Parliament that Indian security agencies are not satisfied with RIM's offer of access to Blackberry Messenger (BBM) services data. RIM had earlier offered access to its consumer services, including its Messenger services but the Indian security agencies maintained their tough stance on encryption keys needed for the lawful access to its corporate email. While RIM claims it is not technologically possible to provide complete access to corporate emails, the government agencies demands a same formula that the handsets maker has with other countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, China and the U.S. to access enterprise services. The fate of BlackBerry in India seems to be in limbo as it is learned that the government might go for the extreme step to ban its operations in India if its conditions are not met by March 2011. The Indian government fears that the terrorists and other insurgent forces could use encrypted services to co-ordinate attacks on the country.

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