Govt: BlackBerry Mail Interception Onus Is On Mobile Operators Now
Blackberry Enterprise mail services will have to be stopped by Indian telecom operators, if it cannot be monitored by the Government. On the basis of national security, the relevant Law Enforcement Agency wants the ability to intercept communication between anyone who uses a mobile network. To that end, it now looks like the Indian Government is implicitly shifting the onus from RIM (Blackberry phone maker) onto the service provider.
For a while now, the company behind Blackberry, Research in Motion (RIM) has been saying that they have gone as far as they could on this matter. They already gave the Government access in early 2011, to intercept BlackBerry Messaging services in real-time. At the bone of contention now, is the BlackBerry Enterprise Service, which is managed by servers of corporates who want to provide Enterprise mail service to their employees. This allows companies to maintain confidentiality of internal emails, with their own encryption key.
The infrastructure and security architecture behind the BlackBerry service is designed by RIM. According to them, this design is the same across the world, and RIM/BlackBerry has no key (or backdoor) to break this encryption. RIM says, communication is entirely private between the relevant company's BlackBerry Enterprise email server and the BlackBerry mobile phones owned by that company's employees.
But the BlackBerry Enterprise mail service is designed and sold by RIM, and emails to and from a BlackBerry phone pass through a mobile phone operator's network. These factors have attracted the attention of the Indian Government's Home Ministry, which is trying to make sure that all communication within India can be monitored to guard against threats to national security. It must in the power of RIM, or the mobile/telecom network operator, to turn over communication? Or is it barking up the wrong tree in both cases? Seeing as the relevant companies operating BlackBerry servers are actually the ones who can do something about it, will the Government go after them next?
Union Home Secretary G K Pillai told PTI, "It is between the licencee (operators) to tell RIM that look if you can't do this, you can't use my network. It is as simple as that. I have only to deal with the licencee. I do not deal with RIM matters. I do not have any agreement with Blackberry." He said the licence agreement between the Government and mobile service providers has a condition stating, "Whoever uses your network, we must be able to intercept that in a form to the satisfaction of the Law Enforcement Agency." He further said, "Our aim is to make sure that whatever goes through our networks, we should be able, if required, intercept it... The issue is that we want that if you are using the network as per the licencing condition, there must be a provision for us to intercept... those which we want to intercept and that must be readable and legible format."
RIM was given a deadline of 31st January 2011, to give monitoring access that satisfied the relevant Law Enforcement Agency. Upon being asked whether the deadline has been extended, Mr. Pillai said, "We have not extended the date, but it has not been terminated also." RIM had said in effect that it is technically not possible for them to handover data from the private BlackBerry Enterprise servers run by corporates. Responding to this, Mr. Pillai said, "Even messenger services -- they all said we can't do it... We can't do it... Only when we said, okay, we are gonna close it down, they came and said here is the solution. I have a feeling... under pressure they'll do it."
According to the Economic Times which quoted the above comments by Mr. Pillai, there are eight mobile service operators who offer BlackBerry services in India, to over a million BlackBerry subscribers.
Blackberry Enterprise mail services will have to be stopped by Indian telecom operators, if it cannot be monitored by the Government. On the basis of national security, the relevant Law Enforcement Agency wants the ability to intercept communication between anyone who uses a mobile network. To that end, it now looks like the Indian Government is implicitly shifting the onus from RIM (Blackberry phone maker) onto the service provider.
For a while now, the company behind Blackberry, Research in Motion (RIM) has been saying that they have gone as far as they could on this matter. They already gave the Government access in early 2011, to intercept BlackBerry Messaging services in real-time. At the bone of contention now, is the BlackBerry Enterprise Service, which is managed by servers of corporates who want to provide Enterprise mail service to their employees. This allows companies to maintain confidentiality of internal emails, with their own encryption key.
The infrastructure and security architecture behind the BlackBerry service is designed by RIM. According to them, this design is the same across the world, and RIM/BlackBerry has no key (or backdoor) to break this encryption. RIM says, communication is entirely private between the relevant company's BlackBerry Enterprise email server and the BlackBerry mobile phones owned by that company's employees.
But the BlackBerry Enterprise mail service is designed and sold by RIM, and emails to and from a BlackBerry phone pass through a mobile phone operator's network. These factors have attracted the attention of the Indian Government's Home Ministry, which is trying to make sure that all communication within India can be monitored to guard against threats to national security. It must in the power of RIM, or the mobile/telecom network operator, to turn over communication? Or is it barking up the wrong tree in both cases? Seeing as the relevant companies operating BlackBerry servers are actually the ones who can do something about it, will the Government go after them next?
Union Home Secretary G K Pillai told PTI, "It is between the licencee (operators) to tell RIM that look if you can't do this, you can't use my network. It is as simple as that. I have only to deal with the licencee. I do not deal with RIM matters. I do not have any agreement with Blackberry." He said the licence agreement between the Government and mobile service providers has a condition stating, "Whoever uses your network, we must be able to intercept that in a form to the satisfaction of the Law Enforcement Agency." He further said, "Our aim is to make sure that whatever goes through our networks, we should be able, if required, intercept it... The issue is that we want that if you are using the network as per the licencing condition, there must be a provision for us to intercept... those which we want to intercept and that must be readable and legible format."
RIM was given a deadline of 31st January 2011, to give monitoring access that satisfied the relevant Law Enforcement Agency. Upon being asked whether the deadline has been extended, Mr. Pillai said, "We have not extended the date, but it has not been terminated also." RIM had said in effect that it is technically not possible for them to handover data from the private BlackBerry Enterprise servers run by corporates. Responding to this, Mr. Pillai said, "Even messenger services -- they all said we can't do it... We can't do it... Only when we said, okay, we are gonna close it down, they came and said here is the solution. I have a feeling... under pressure they'll do it."
According to the Economic Times which quoted the above comments by Mr. Pillai, there are eight mobile service operators who offer BlackBerry services in India, to over a million BlackBerry subscribers.
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