India rumored joining in BlackBerry ultimatums

India could use the pretext of the Saudi negotiations to threaten a ban on BlackBerry services, sources said late Tuesday. If government officials are unable to get access to codes for the phones in talks with RIM on Thursday, they will reportedly push for a deadline after which BlackBerry services would stop. The Reuters contacts had no expectations of when that deadline would be.

The south Asian state has been pressing for access to BlackBerries for over two years as it believes its regulations entitle it to monitor e-mail and instant messaging traffic for security reasons. Pressure to implement a solution raised dramatically after the Mumbai attacks, as the coordination of the terrorist acts left it anxious that phones could be used to catch police off-guard.

RIM is rumored, but not yet confirmed, to be giving direct access to Saudi Arabia that would let them identify individual devices and potentially crack encryption. If so, it would be obliged to give those to India as well as the company has always insisted on equal options for every country. True direct access may be difficult or impossible, as the encryption keys are created by the sender and recipient and don't have any room for RIM to automatically crack the code.

Spokespeople from RIM have declined to comment.

By Electronista Staff