RIM denies any change to Blackberry Enterprise Server in India

31 Dec 2010

Home ministry joint secretary, Dharmendra Sharma, in a communication to the telecoms department said that RIM had agreed to provide a final solution to its messenger chat services by 31January, 2011. He added the Canadian company had said the cloud-based computing system was the final solution it was putting in place by January-end for this facility.

According to a yesterday report in The Economic Times, RIM had offered to install a network data analysis system (NDAS) at its premises in India, to put an end to the three year dispute between the security agencies and the Canadian company. Security agencies have been demanding access to BlackBerry communications. (See: RIM offers India specific solutions, but is it comprehensive?)

In a statement yesterday, RIM said it had not provided any access to its highly-secure corporate emails. The company shot down the Economic Times report that said RIM had offered to install ''a network data analysis system'' in India to settle a dispute with regulators. 

"Unfortunately, the story in The Economic Times contains inaccurate and misleading information, presumably as a result of confusion over terminology and a lack of understanding about the different security models inherent in BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES)," RIM said in a statement.

The company also denied there was any 31 January deadline for compliance and reiterated that its position on BES is unchanged.

"There will be no change to the security model of BES," RIM said. "The government of India has in fact accepted and acknowledged that any concerns about the use of strong encryption for corporate and government data is not a matter specific to BlackBerry and that lawful access to such encrypted data is actually an industry matter."