New Delhi: India has not yet reached an agreement with BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion, the telecom minister said on Thursday, after the government raised security concerns over the popular services.
India is worried that BlackBerry services could be misused by militants as security agencies cannot access the messages sent through these services and has asked RIM to offer a solution to address the country's security requirements.
Andimuthu Raja told reporters that officials of the Department of Telecommunications and RIM were still discussing the issue.
"We have not reached an agreement so far. Hopefully some solution will come out soon," he said.
The government may block the BlackBerry messenger service but allow emails and voicemails if a solution is not reached, the Times of India said on Thursday, citing unnamed sources. Such a move would follow Saudi Arabia, which has said it would block BlackBerry messenger services, starting Friday.
RIM has said that it is impossible for it or any other third party to read encrypted data sent via its enterprise offering and that the company cannot accommodate any request for a copy of a customer's encryption key.
But a senior government source told Reuters on Wednesday the company has said it could share the IP address of BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) and the PIN and IMEI numbers of BlackBerry mobiles. The government feels that is not sufficient and wants full access.
RIM has assured the Indian government that they would be addressing the country's concerns, UK Bansal, special secretary (internal security), said last week.
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