No ban on Blackberry in India

14 March 2008

New Delhi: India has clarified that banning Canadian company Research In Motion's BlackBerry services that are provided to the Indian public by four mobile service providers, is not being considered.

Security agencies in India have expressed concerns over the service's encryption levels, which ensures that email messages  sent using it cannot be traced, intercepted, or decrypted.

Speaking on the sidelines of a industry meet, Siddhartha Behura, telecommunications secretary clarified that at the present time, there was ''no question of banning'' the service. He said that the telecommunications department was keen to have the services continue.  Tlecommunications minister A Raja also said that  interactions between various stakeholders, including the home ministry, were underway, and he was optimistic about the matter being resolved.

Behura said the telecommunications department has advised officials of Research in Motion (RIM) about their security concerns, and will be meeting representatives of the four mobile phone service providers, Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, and BPL, who offer BlackBerry services in India. He said the department would like to see service providers convey the gravity of the government's concerns to Blackberry officials, so that plausible and satisfactory replies can be given to security agencies.

V Ramachandran, director general of industry body Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI), had earlier said that meetings with the government on the Blackberry issue were underway, and more were in the offing. He has said that the government wants its security concerns addressed, and his association was looking for an ''effective dialogue'' with security agencies and the department of telecommunications. The Business Standard had estimated the total number of Blackberry customers in India at around 400,000. This group is comprised largely of corporate customers, who's employees and managers use the service to stay connected to their offices while on the move.

Reports in the media had indicated that the government would possibly seek access to algorithms from RIM that would allow it to intercept and decipher email messages sent via Blackberry. Other speculation hovered around the possibility of reducing the level of encryption from 128-bit to 40-bit, considered to be more 'intercept able' levels. Operators note that if BlackBerry services are banned, security agencies could possibly next go after e-commerce applications, such as especially money transfers, which use encryption. A reduction in encryption levels such as this would render most online transactions risky, and practically choke the online banking and e-commerce industry.