DoT wants Blackberry to host servers in India

New Delhi: The department of telecom has asked Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) to set up servers in India, so that it can legally intercept Blackberry to Blackberry emails.

This request was conveyed to company officials at a meeting between DoT officials, security agencies, Canadian High Commission representatives and representatives of telecom operators.

According to government sources, telecom operators Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, BPL and Reliance Communications supported the DoT's demand that the company view the possibility of setting up a server in India, in case it is unwilling to part with the decryption code.

DoT has no issues with communication between a Blackberry device and any other device or over the internet, as it is able to intercept and decode those messages. According to Indian Internet services rules, operators need to use 40-bit or lower encryption, unless they submit a decryption key to the Government. RIM uses encryption higher than the standard 128-bit codes to secure its transmissions, and has thus far refused to submit the decryption codes saying that they were proprietary.