Canada-based Research In Motion (RIM) on Monday agreed to give Indian law enforcement agencies access to its BlackBerry smartphone's messenger service from September 1.
It would also work towards finding some “technical solution” to decode its enterprise services.
From September 1, RIM will cooperate with Indian security agencies by giving them partial access to the BlackBerry Messenger Service (BMS), which allows two smartphone users to chat in an encrypted format. Initially, RIM will provide manual details to the agencies, and by the year-end, the latter would be able to access BMS automatically, sources in the government said.
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Senior RIM officials, who had discussions with the Home Ministry and Department of Telecommunications officials as well as technical experts from security agencies, agreed to find some “technical solution” to intercept the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). The service allows corporates to have an e-mail service in a highly encrypted form secured by a ‘key' that flows only through RIM's server, which cannot be deciphered even by RIM.
The sources said RIM told the officials that they would have to find some “technical solution” to the BES as they themselves do not have the ‘key' to break encrypted messages. A few more discussions would be held to reach some kind of understanding on the issue.