Research In Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of BlackBerry devices, has stated that it does not sign country-specific deals on allowing access to its network. The Canada based manufacturer also said that it does not have the ability to provide its customer encryption keys to any agency.
This comes after some reports had suggested that RIM had signed an agreement with Indian security agencies to allow access to data flowing through its network. The reports were based on alleged government documents that claimed that RIM, Nokia and Apple had signed a memorandum of understanding to this effect.
The alleged documents indicate that the smartphone manufacturers gave the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Indian military intelligence tools that would let the Indian agencies read encrypted e-mails sent to and from RIM’s BlackBerrys, Apple’s iPhones and Nokia smartphones.
RIM has stated that no changes have been made to the security architecture for BlackBerry Enterprise Server customers and the architecture is the same around the world.
For the past two years, Indian security agencies have been asking RIM for giving access to the data flowing through its network. The company, however, has so far refused to comply on grounds that it was technically not possible.
