India’s BlackBerry concerns addressed: Canadian minister
by The PocketBerry Team
The Indian government’s security concern over BlackBerry phones, manufactured by the Canada-based Research In Motion (RIM), has been ‘resolved as far as possible’, visiting Canadian Minister of Industry Tony Clement has said.
Tony Clement, which is currently the fourth Canadian minister to be in India in a month, started his visit from Saturday, and met Communications Minister A. Raja early on Monday. He said”There was an issue with respect to the company RIM and BlackBerry I thanked him (Raja) for his government’s assistance in resolving that to the best of our abilities.” He also added “My understanding is that a lot of information has been transmitted by RIM to the government of India which has helped to highlight the technical issues. And that the wording that I have seen is that it is resolved as far as possible.”
BlackBerry devices had earlier come under scrutiny after Indian security agencies expressed concern that the data being transmitted through the device could not be intercepted due to the high encryption codes being used by the company.
Following last December’s Mumbai terror attacks, the wireless planning and coordination wing of the Department of Telecom (DoT), which gives approvals for all imported radio equipment and devices, raised objections to e-mails not being intercepted.
In India, BlackBerry services are offered by a number of operators including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). Two weeks ago, we posted about the Mumbai Police Department testing out BlackBerry services for a possible big move in giving all enforcement BlackBerrys. The Canadian minister said RIM and DoT will continue to hold talks in regards to issues.
While the issue of the tainted IT Company Satyam did not come up in discussions, Clement said it was clearly “an isolated incident”. “Obviously it’s unfortunate. Indian authorities have acted quickly and everyone is aware that it’s important to maintain confidence in Indian companies,” he added. Satyam has four offices in Canada currently to date.
Getting all that security concern out of the way was a big releif as we saw plenty of paranoia in the United States with Obama’s BlackBerry and security threats against it, one downfall being that it was a Canadian device goin through Canadian servers
