| India to weigh plan on BlackBerry curb | Send to a friend |
| Monday, 30 August 2010 23:15 |
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Indian authorities were scheduled to decide today whether to ban some BlackBerry services in India, one day ahead of a government-imposed deadline for the device's maker Research In Motion Ltd to give security agencies access to encrypted data. Home Secretary G.K. Pillai will meet officials from the Department of Telecommunications, the Intelligence Bureau and the National Technical Research Organisation — a cyber intelligence organization — to discuss BlackBerry security issues, Home ministry spokesman Onkar Kedia said. A decision on whether to ban service is "likely" to be reached tonight, Kedia said. There one million BlackBerry users in India. RIM has shown few signs of capitulating to India's demands for real time access to encrypted corporate e-mail, which the Canadian company maintains is technically impossible for it to provide. Government officials, speaking anonymously to local media, have suggested that India may be willing to extend the deadline. RIM is facing widespread concern over its strong data encryption, which is beloved by corporate customers eager to guard secrets but troublesome for some governments in the Middle East and Asia, which worry it could be used by militants to avoid detection. The controversy, which reaches across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Lebanon and India, sent RIM's stock price to a 16-month low Friday. Striking the right balance between national security and corporate privacy is especially important to Indian outsourcing companies eager to protect client data. "India is termed an outsourcing hub for the US and Europe so data security is a primary issue. If there is any data leakage, we lose business," said Chetan Samant, 35, a manager at a software association as he thumbed his BlackBerry waiting for a flight from Mumbai to Nagpur recently. He believes BlackBerry usage is so widespread in India now that it would be politically difficult for the government to enact a ban. AGENCIES Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
