M A I N   N E W S

BlackBerry blinks
Girja Shankar Kaura
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 30
BlackBerry services in the country got a reprieve today from the security agencies as its Canadian manufacturer, Research In Motion (RIM) offered some solutions to access data transmitted on the smartphone.

While the government gave the RIM a 60-day period to locate a server in the country, the move from the Canadian company would mean that it has avoided an immediate ban on its services, as the government studies the solutions put forward.

"RIM have made certain proposals for lawful access by law enforcement agencies and these will be operationalised immediately,” the Home Ministry said in a statement. "The feasibility of the solutions offered will be assessed thereafter."

The statement came late in the evening after the representatives from RIM held a meeting with the Home Ministry officials and put forward the solutions. The government in the statement further said it would review the situation and that the Department of Telecommunications would submit its report in the next two months.

Incidentally, the last ditch effort from RIM came on the day when its nearest rival Nokia said it would be setting up an enterprise server in the country by November to comply with the conditions of the security agencies. The security officials had met in the evening to take a final decision on BlackBerry services in the country, just a day before the earlier August 31 deadline for the firm to give security agencies access to its secure data got over.

RIM gave in to the government's demand and agreed to locate server in India. RIM would provide full data access to the authorities and the situation would be reviewed in 60 days, said sources. The government, worried that militants could use BlackBerry's heavily encrypted services to plan attacks, has been asking RIM for a solution for over an year now, whereby the security agencies could get complete access to BlackBerry's messenger and e-mail services.

The government earlier in the month gave the Canadian company a final deadline of August 31 to either provide a solution for monitoring encrypted data or shut shop.