RIM Gives India Access to Consumer Messaging
Research In Motion has finally settled its long-running dispute with the Indian government over its BlackBerry Messenger Service–part of it, anyway.
It has given wireless carriers in the country the ability to intercept messages sent over its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service and BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) if requested by the government. “The lawful access capability now available to RIM’s carrier partners meets the standard required by the government of India for all consumer messaging services offered in the Indian marketplace,” RIM said in a customer update.
Well, not quite.
The Indian government also wants access to communications sent over RIM’s corporate service. The company hasn’t yet provided that and continues to argue that it’s impossible to do so.
“No changes can be made to the security architecture for BlackBerry Enterprise Server customers since, contrary to any rumors, the security architecture is the same around the world and RIM truly has no ability to provide its customers’ encryption keys,” RIM explained in its customer update.
In other words, the solution RIM has provided is a partial one. It still hasn’t met one of the Indian government’s key demands. Will this concession on BBM and BIS be enough to mollify it?