India’s federal home ministry is in talks with telecom service providers to procure access to corporate emails sent and received through Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry smart phones, a government official said Thursday.
India fears the highly encrypted messages and emails sent through the smart phones makes them convenient for terrorists to use undetected. It had asked RIM to grant access to its messenger services before Jan. 31, and the Canada-based company provided access to its messenger services, but has maintained it can’t provide a solution for corporate emails.
“We don’t have a direct agreement with Research In Motion…we are only talking to [telecom] service providers,” said a spokesman for the federal home ministry.
Mobile phone companies such as Bharti Airtel Ltd., Reliance Communications Ltd., Idea Cellular Ltd., Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd., Tata Teleservices Ltd., Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., and Vodafone Essar Ltd., provide BlackBerry services in the country.
The official was referring to a clause in the telecom licensing agreement, which specifies that the government agencies can ask telecom service providers for access to monitor and intercept all communication services.
A spokesman for the Indian unit of Research In Motion didn’t immediately offer comments on the development.
Officials at Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Idea, MTNL, Tata Teleservices, Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Vodafone Essar couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.
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