Indian Govt puts onus on operators to share BlackBerry info

New Delhi, Aug 4 (PTI) In a new twist to the BlackBerry
controversy, the Indian government Wednesday said the onus of
giving access to security agencies to monitor the information
on these smart phones lies with the service providers.

Government sources said, according to the licensing
conditions, the service providers are liable to put in a
mechanism to allow the security agencies to intercept any
conversation or message of any subscriber whenever required.
As telecom service providers like Airtel, Vodafone,
RCom, the Tatas and the government-run BSNL and MTNL are
offering BlackBerry services, it is the responsibility of
these operators to ensure that the security agencies get
access to all services they offer.
Sources further said the maker of BlackBerry phones,
Research in Motion (RIM), has conveyed to the operators that
services like email and voicemail can be intercepted by the
security agencies but no commitment has been given to services
like BlackBerry Messager.
RIM had said Tuesday that not only the company but even
operators can decipher the encrpted data on its smart phones.
"We told the service providers in categorical terms that
the government will allow them to offer those services which
could be intercepted by the security agencies. If any service
is not allowed to be intercepted, we will not allow them to
run such services," sources said.
While expressing its inability to share access, RIM had
said Tuesday that the security architecture for its
enterprise customers is based on a symmetric key system
whereby the customers create their own key and only they
possess the copy of the encryption.
"RIM does not possess a master key nor does any backdoor
exist in the system that would allow RIM or any third party to
gain an unauthorised access to the key or corporate data," the
company had said, adding RIM, therefore, will be unable to
accommodate any request for a copy of a customer's encryption
key since at no time does RIM, or any wireless network
operator, ever possess a copy of the key.
There are about 1 million BlackBerry subscribers
registered with different operators in India. PTI ACB
RDM