BlackBerry interception not to affect enterprise mobile users

BANGALORE, INDIA: Who said BlackBerry won't let Govt in India to monitored BB messages. According to reports, the Canadian phone maker is silinetly cooperating with Indian authorities to provide a way to intercept consumers' messages sent and received on its platform.

It may be recalled here that the Canadian phone maker had a long feud with Govt of India regarding interspersion of data sent on its phones. The company had also claimed that it does not have a "master key" or "backdoor" that would make encrypted corporate information sent through its service accessible either to itself or law enforcers.

ToI report claimed to have seen an internal document from the country's Department of Telecommunications, which read: "Barring a few minor points for improvement of viewers, the lawful interception system for Blackberry services is ready for use."

It said officials appeared to have dropped demands that the firm also made it possible to access business emails sent over Blackberry Enterprise Server.

As a consequence, it said, authorities would be able to:

• Track email and email attachments sent over the consumer-version of Blackberry Internet Service (BIS)

• See when chats sent over Blackberry Messenger (BBM) were delivered and read monitor which websites were visited

Meanwhile, the Canadian firm would soon sign an agreement to hand over its own Mumbai (Bombay) based monitoring equipment and train government officials to use it.

Blackberry has issued a statement confirming its co-operation. "The lawful access capability now available to Blackberry's carrier partners meets the

standard required by the government of India for all consumer messaging services offered in the Indian marketplace," it said.

"We also wish to underscore, once again, that this enablement of lawful access does not extend to Blackberry Enterprise Server."