| Policy & Regulation | | | BlackBerry issue: DoT under fire on delay in solution | | | TT Correspondent | | 08 Aug 2011 | | |   Making it clear that no compromise can be made with nation's security, a parliamentary panel has expressed discontent over several extensions given by the DoT to Canadian firm offering Black-Berry services in highly encrypted format without a satisfactory solution.
"The committee expresses unhappiness over the way the extension after extension are being given to resolve such an important issue related to security of the country," the panel on information technology said in its latest report. Security agencies have expressed concern on highly encrypted communication made through BlackBerry phones and have demanded Research In Motion, maker of BlackBerry phones, to provide them data in readable format.
"The committee has been apprised that out of the various services provided by Black-Berry, the BlackBerry Messenger and Black-Berry Enterprise Solution services cannot be intercepted in readable format, even if the encrypted message is made available by the service providers," the report said.
The government gave three extensions to RIM, with the last date being March 31, 2011. Before the end of its last extension, RIM highlighted a number of other highly encrypted services being provided in the country by its competitors and sought to make it an industry issue.
Thereafter, the government formed a committee to come up with mechanism to deal with encryption issues for providing data access to security agencies which is mandatory under the Indian Telegraph Act. "Constitution of committee for the purpose is another delaying tactics," it said.
Regarding the problem of highly encrypted data, the DoT is of the view that when the message is in transition, the security agencies can intercept it but cannot read it because it is highly encrypted and it is a high level of encryption.
"We have consulted experts. The only solution is, we can ban it...but it can be perceived to be (a) retrograde step because it is not only BlackBerry which uses this kind of service but all kinds of enterprise communications also use it," the DoT sources said. |
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