The government seems to have changed its stand on the issue of security threat linked to Blackberry services
NEW DELHI: The government seems to have changed its stand on the issue of security threat linked to Blackberry services, and indications are that there are no regulatory hurdles in the way now.
Department of Telecommunications (DoT) secretary Siddharth Behura on Wednesday said, “There is no threat from Blackberry services.” He was replying to media queries on the sidelines of a Ficci telecom conference on whether the government had taken a decision to permit Blackberry services in the country.
After several months of high level meetings between DoT, ministry of home affairs and Canada-based Research In Motion (RIM) on how email data from one Blackberry device to another could be intercepted by Indian security agencies, the government’s latest stand on the issue has come as a surprise to many.
RIM is the maker and licensor of the Blackberry service.
When asked if the government would give approval to companies that have applied for starting Blackberry services, Behura said, “No permission is needed for starting value-added services.”
He said the government has neither allowed nor disallowed anyone to start the Blackberry service.
Security agencies fear that the service could be misused by terrorists as there’s no way the data sent through this device could be intercepted.
The controversy surfaced a few months ago when the government declined Tata Teleservices’ application for offering the Blackberry service, citing security reasons.
The ministry of home affairs said Blackberry does not allow for “lawful interception”, and it was a cause for concern. Since other operators - Bharti, Reliance
Communications, Vodafone, and BPL Mobile have already been offering Blackberry, everyone had come under the government scrutiny subsequently.
Now, state-owned Bhara Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) also wants to start the service, whenever it is legally permitted, a company official had said recently.
Meanwhile, sources said, Tata Teleservices is in a state of readiness to launch Blackberry. Tata Tele had earlier informed DoT about it, but it has not got any response from the department yet.
In April, communications minister A Raja had said, national security is of paramount importance, in the context of Blackberry service. But, DoT had assured that the services will not be disrupted.
Although RIM was in talks with the government on the issue of “legal interception”, it recently pointed out that placing a server in India was not feasible. Server in India would have enabled the government to get access to the data transmitted through Blackberry for security reasons.
Even as telecom analysts put the number of Blackberry users in the country at around four to five million, an industry insider said the number is much lower. The actual numbers could not be independently verified.
m_nivedita@dnaindia.net
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