RIM seeks one month to resolve BlackBerry issues

16 May 2008

Mumbai: Research in Motion, the vendor of BlackBerry smart phones, has promised to resolve Indian security concerns about the wireless e-mail devices' use in a month's time.

"RIM has promised the government that they will come out with a solution in a month," telecom minister A Raja told reporters.

The government has held a series of meetings with Canada-based RIM and mobile operators in India after security agencies raised concerns that e-mails sent through BlackBerry devices could not be traced or intercepted.

Reports, meanwhile, said RIM might allow the government to intercept non-corporate e-mails sent over Blackberry smart phones.

The BlackBerry smart phones are capable of encrypting data at very high levels of 256 bits whereas government agencies are able to intercept and decode data encrypted at up to 40 bits only. 

The government intercepts data purely for security reasons and the use of BlackBerry smart phones would make this impossible.