Blackberry maker Research In Motion has said it would allow Indian security agencies only to do legal monitoring of data of its subscribers, although India has asked the smartphone vendor to provide access to e-mail and messenger data or face ban.

‘The only time it allows carriers to access the data sent via BlackBerry devices is in the case of national security situations, and even then, only as governed by the country's judicial oversight and rules of law” the Canada-based Research In Motion (RIM) said in a statement.

India has threatened to shut down BlackBerry e-mail and instant messaging services by August 31, unless RIM granted security agencies the technology to decrypt BlackBerry communications, citing national security concerns.

Although some experts have said that RIM's decision to only allow access to its data when ordered to do so by a judge might be problematic in certain countries where the judiciary is less than impartial, the company said that it maintains a “consistent global standard for lawful access requirements that does not include special deals for specific countries”.

“Although RIM cannot disclose confidential regulatory discussions that take place with any government, RIM assures its customers that it genuinely tries to be as cooperative as possible with governments in the spirit of supporting legal and national security requirements, while also preserving the lawful needs of citizens and corporations,” RIM said.

Any technical capabilities that RIM would give to a carrier that would allow for the legal monitoring of BlackBerry messages would have to be “technology and vendor neutral,” the company said, an indication that RIM is not willing to allow foreign governments to access data sent using BlackBerrys that security agencies in those countries wouldn't already be able to monitor if it were sent from smartphones made by competing manufacturers.

India's ultimatum was issued hours after senior officials from government, intelligence and state-run telecom operators met to discuss how to gain access to BlackBerry content.

"If a technical solution is not provided by August 31, 2010, the government will review the position and take steps to block these two services from the network,” Home ministry said on Thursday.

India wants access in a readable format to encrypted BlackBerry communication, on grounds it could be used by militants. There are an estimated one million BlackBerry subscribers in the country.

Following is the customer update issued by RIM on August 12, 2010

In response to the statement published today by the Government of India, and further to RIM's Customer Update dated August 2, RIM wishes to provide this additional information to its customers. Although RIM cannot disclose confidential regulatory discussions that take place with any government, RIM assures its customers that it genuinely tries to be as cooperative as possible with governments in the spirit of supporting legal and national security requirements, while also preserving the lawful needs of citizens and corporations. RIM has drawn a firm line by insisting that any capabilities it provides to carriers for "lawful" access purposes be limited by four main principles:

1)            The carriers' capabilities be limited to the strict context of lawful access and national security requirements as governed by the country's judicial oversight and rules of law.

2)      The carriers' capabilities must be technology and vendor neutral, allowing no greater access to BlackBerry consumer services than the carriers and regulators already impose on RIM's competitors and other similar communications technology companies.

3)       No changes to the security architecture for BlackBerry

Enterprise Server customers since, contrary to any rumors, the security architecture is the same around the world and RIM truly has no ability to provide its customers' encryption keys. Also driving RIM's position is the fact that strong encryption is a fundamental commercial  requirement for any country to attract and maintain international business anyway and similarly strong encryption is currently used pervasively in traditional VPNs on both wired and wireless networks in order to protect corporate and government communications.

4)      RIM maintains a consistent global standard for lawful access requirements that does not include special deals for specific countries.