After RIM, handset makers Apple, Nokia and Samsung come under the government’s scanner

The Government has established a technical committee to examine services similar to BlackBerry, provided by players including Apple, Samsung and Nokia, according to news reports. The committee will check if services provided by the various players are adhering to the security monitoring requirements.

According to an internal government note, a technical committee has been formed to look into the architecture of various similar services so that a decision could be taken to address the issue of lawful interception of these services. The solution or action will depend on the nature, architecture of service and gravity of need felt by security agency.

This comes after Research In Motion pleaded with the government not to be singled out. The Canadian company had said that smartphones from Apple, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, HTC and Sony Ericsson use strong encryption in their products.

In BlackBerry?s case, the Government is still unhappy with the solutions offered by RIM to monitor BlackBerry Messenger. RIM had earlier said that it had offered a solution for snooping into BlackBerry Messenger and it was up to the DoT to issue instructions to the operators to connect to the platform.

On accessing the BlackBerry Enterprise Services, the Government is insisting that RIM set up a BlackBerry infrastructure in India. While the company has asked for a guarantee that their service will not be banned if they set up a local infrastructure, the Government has ruled out giving such a promise.