Government may decide to scrap BlackBerry services

Inability on part of the Canada-based firm Research In Motion (RIM), the vendor of ‘BlackBerry’ smartphones, to allow Indian security agencies to read messages or e-mails of its users is likely to further complicate matters, and could even lead to scrapping of BlackBerry services in the country.

According to RIM: “The BlackBerry security architecture for enterprise customers is based on a symmetric key system whereby the customers create their own key and only the customer ever possesses a copy of his encryption key.

“RIM does not possess a ‘master key,’ nor does any ‘back door’ exist in the system that would allow RIM or any third party to gain unauthorised access to the key or corporate data.

“The BlackBerry security architecture for enterprise customers is purposefully designed to exclude the capability for RIM or any third party to read encrypted information under any circumstances. RIM would simply 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,” the company has said.

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