Indian govt steps down on BES access request, RIM sets up server in Mumbai

Research In Motion (RIM) has finally set up its servers in India that will allow Indian security agencies to monitor some aspects of its users’ communications made from the devices. From what we can understand, RIM has given direct access to the Indian government for its consumer-grade messaging service (BlackBerry Messenger and BlackBerry Internet Service) and denying access to its enterprise service called BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES). In order to access BES, the government agencies will have to tap into service providers that store emails in decrypted format before they are encrypted and pushed to the recipient’s device.
The servers have been inspected by a team of officers and permission for direct linkage for lawful interception was expected to be issued shortly, PTI reported today. The government believes that BES is not of very high importance to intelligence and security agencies though it will ask service providers to share a list of all servers. There are about 5,000 BES servers in India. The Indian government also plans to put the same mechanism in place for Nokia’s push mail service.

Related articles

• Canadian government purchasing 500 BlackBerry Playbooks (tech-gadget.co.in)
• Canadian and U.S. Governments certifies BlackBerry 7 Smartphones now (tech-gadget.co.in)
• Govt to intercept BBM services directly with a dedicated server (tech-gadget.co.in)
• RIM to launch BlackBerry Curve 9220 in April in India (tech-gadget.co.in)
• RIM launches new 'Be Bold' campaign; maybe the superheroes weren't so bad [video] (tech-gadget.co.in)

Posted in: Blackberry,RIM