New Delhi, September 19
The government has asked telecom service providers to upgrade their networks for the interception of information sent and received on BlackBerry phones and be ready for the demonstration of such facilities to the authorities concerned.

In a communication to the operators, the Department of Telecom (DoT) said, "Please upgrade your technical capability for the lawful interception facility of BlackBerry services, if not upgraded till now… A compliance report that the network has been technically upgraded to intercept all BlackBerry services by legal enforcement agencies (LEAs) for lawful interception must be provided to this office by September 22, 2010.”

BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion (RIM), which is in discussions with the government to provide a mutually acceptable solution for the interception of encrypted data on the device, was given a 60-day reprieve till October to come out with a solution or face a ban.

The DoT’s fresh order comes within days of the company asserting that it "cannot compromise the security architecture of its enterprise solution”.

The DoT told telecom service providers that “the date and time demonstration of legal interception system (LIS) and legal interception mechanism (LIM) in this regard shall be intimated to all shortly”. All leading operators, including state-owned BSNL and MTNL, offer BlackBerry services in India. — PTI