After several rounds of discussions with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Research In Motion (RIM) has established a server in the country to enable security agencies to access its Blackberry Messenger services.
RIM has been under various Indian security agencies? scanner for three years with regard to this issue. Prior to this, in October 2011, the handset maker had submitted a solution for real-time interception of its Blackberry Enterprise Services (BES). This solution was found to be up to par.
Thereafter, DoT plans to request other handset companies, such Nokia and Motorola to develop a similar solution.
According to the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, and the licencing terms and conditions for operators, companies are required to provide a lawful interception and monitoring solution for any service they provide.
RIM uses an encryption mechanism to encode email messages sent between BlackBerry devices and a computer, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), designed to secure e-mails. RIM had earlier said that the company does not possess any master key to decode the messages, as it is randomly generated on customers’ Blackberry smartphones.
Security agencies had expressed concerns over the encrypted data being sent using BlackBerry mobile phones and have been asking for a decryption solution for its corporate mails and messenger services.
Based on the perceived security threat, DoT had instructed all operators to ensure that a technical solution for interception and monitoring of BlackBerry services in a readable format is made available to law enforcement agencies, failing which the services would have to be stopped.
