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Journalism of Courage
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked telecom operators to put the required security system in place for Blackberry services within 15 days or stop the services. Blackberry is a hand-held device developed by Research In Mobile (RIM) of Canada, which enables access of email via SMS. Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance already offer Blackberry services. Currently, the Indian telecom service providers have not installed systems for tapping Blackberry systems. This has been opposed by security agencies.
The notice directs telecom operators to work with officials of Blackberry licensor RIM to provide a full-proof security system in the country. If the services were stopped, over four lakh users of Blackberry would not be able to use this premium service which enables users to access e-mail in the form of SMS.
The DoT secretary had recently said that the government was keen to resolve the matter at the earliest. A Blackberry spokesperson said that RIM operates in more than 130 countries around the world and respects the regulatory requirements of governments. RIM does not comment on confidential regulatory matters or speculation on such matters in any given country.
Earlier, Tata Teleservices managing director Anil Sardana had said that the company has not been allowed to offer Blackberry services as there is no provision of lawful intercept.
“We have been told that the Blackberry services do not have (scope for) lawful interception, may be because it does not have a server in India and it may be difficult to monitor the content,” said Sardana.
Asked whether government’s prior permission was necessary to launch Blackberry services, Sardana said, “All value-added services have to have prior approval of the government to ensure that they have lawful interception,” he said.
