BlackBerry to let India monitor email messages

BlackBerry appears to have buckled under pressure from the Indian government and will now allow the authorities access to encrypted messages and emails sent between its phones in order to avoid being banned in the country.
 
The Canadian company Research In Motion, who make the BlackBerry, had been warned that "any communication through the telecom networks should be accessible to the law enforcement agencies" and was told that its services would be blocked unless it complied.

But RIM has now been granted a two-month stay of execution after it agreed to "some technical solutions" that would allow local security services to monitor messages.
 
The Indian government is concerned that terrorists can use BlackBerry and other encrypted devices to plan attacks. Action has already been taken against BlackBerry in Saudi Arabia and other nations where there are concerns that the phones, which route all messages via Canada and cannot be monitored locally, are being used to plot against the state or by those breaking Islamic laws.
 
Having brought BlackBerry to heel, the Indian government is now thought to be targeting Google and Skype. Those two companies will be given a certain amount of time to allow the authorities access to Google's Gmail accounts and the inner workings of Skype's Internet telephony services, but they too face bans if they do not come up with a way to let the government keep tabs on what information is being exchanged. One way of granting that access would be to base the servers in India.
 
It is believed that BlackBerry will eventually have a server in India, which would allow security forces access to information passing through it. Other tech companies are taking note of the new hard line in Delhi. Earlier this week the Finnish mobile handset maker Nokia said it would set up servers in India by the end of the year to address the government's concerns. ·