RIM Denies Deal With India Over Access
Research in Motion isn’t any nearer to a deal to provide the Indian government with access to its encrypted email and instant messaging data than it was back in October. This despite the claims of an anonymous official from the country’s interior ministry who says the BlackBerry maker has “in principle agreed to provide us recorded data from their servers.”
According to RIM, that’s not the case at all. In fact, says the company, it has no plans to make any changes to the security architecture for BlackBerry Enterprise Server customers since A) it professes to maintain a consistent global standard for lawful access requirements and doesn’t make specific deals with individual countries and B) it couldn’t provide its customers’ BES encryption keys to curious governments even if it wanted to.
“RIM has once again found it necessary to address certain media reports in India containing inaccurate and misleading statements and information based on unsubstantiated claims from unnamed sources,” the company said in a statement given to me. “Our customers can be reassured that the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution continues to be the gold standard for security-conscious organizations in India and worldwide. All our discussions with the Government of India have been and continue to be productive and fully consistent with the four core principles we follow in addressing lawful access matters around the world. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”
Despite that rather terse rejoinder, RIM says its negotiations with India are moving forward. “Our discussions with the Government in India have been and continue to be productive and we fully expect the matter to be satisfactorily resolved,” said a spokesperson.