RIM refuses to back down in India

Research in Motion and the Indian government were on Friday set for an impasse over New Delhi’s demand for access to BlackBerry e-mails and messaging services after the Canadian company said this was technically impossible.

With a deadline to meet the demand or face a ban only days away, RIM refused to back down, releasing a detailed statement saying its BlackBerry corporate e-mail and messaging services were encrypted by its customers and it did not have the keys to break these codes.

“RIM would simply be unable to accommodate any request for a copy of a customer’s encryption key since at no time does RIM ever possess a copy of the key,” the company said ahead of last-minute talks between the company and Indian telecom and security agency officials on Friday.

The government has set a deadline of Tuesday for Indian mobile operators to shut down the heavily encrypted BlackBerry Enterprise Server corporate e-mail and messaging services on BlackBerrys in the country if RIM does not enable interception of the data by security agencies.

Shaken by the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai and keen to avoid any incidents during the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October, India is stepping up its intelligence gathering.

A ban would affect 1m BlackBerry users in India, the world’s fastest growing mobile phone market with more than 600m users, including the leading conglomerates, multinationals and some government departments, agencies and police forces.

The issue has raised wider questions of data security, with RIM on Friday warning that its service was only one of a multitude of encrypted communications systems used by modern companies and governments to protect information. In an apparent attempt to turn its standoff with the government into a wider debate on data security, RIM proposed the establishment of an “industry forum” to debate the issue of preventing the misuse of encrypted data traffic while ensuring privacy.

“The industry forum would work closely with the Indian government and focus on developing recommendations for policies and processes aimed at preventing the misuse of strong encryption technologies while preserving its many societal benefits in India,” RIM said.

However, a senior official at the Department of Telecommunications in New Delhi derided the proposal.

“They are missing the point,” said the official. “Creating a forum to discuss security issues isn’t going to address the government’s security concerns.”

He warned that if RIM did not comply with the deadline, the government would take measures against it.

The government has told operators they might be required only to shut down the BlackBerry corporate functions, not the consumer services, which are less encrypted.

But operators say they will be unable to distinguish between the services and will have to shut down all BlackBerry handsets.