Relief for BlackBerry as DoT Against Ban on Encrypted Message
Monday, 10 October 2011, 18:29 IST
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NEW DELHI: In some relief to BlackBerry , the telecom ministry is understood to have said that a complete ban on encrypted communications is not desirable as long as solutions exist to have the data intercepted in a readable format. "Banning of encrypted communication is not desirable as long as some solutions exist to get the (data) intercepted in readable format . Therefore, accent should be on regulation of these services in such a manner that security assistance needs and communication security needs are balanced," an expert committee set up by the Department of Telecom (DoT) said in its report. Recently, Canada-based Research In Motion (RIM) came up with a solution for realtime interception of its BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) after seeking several extensions of deadlines for nearly a year. The government had earlier set August 15 as the deadline for RIM, the maker of BlackBerry, to provide the country's security agencies with interception keys to enable real-time tracking of its popular messenger and corporate e-mail services in readable format. Besides RIM, Nokia is another player that provides a push mail facility to its subscribers . The solution provided by RIM is being tested by the DoT, which is expected to give its report by the month-end . Earlier, MHA had also stated that if no solution is found for any encrypted service, those services should be banned or blocked.
Source: PTI