India govt says not in talks with RIM - Not in Talks with RIM over Access Says Indian Govt

The on-going tug-of-war between the Government of India and Canadian handset maker Research in Motion has just turned a bit gruesome. Home Secretary G. K. Pillai told Reuters that the government is not in talks with RIM over lawful access to encrypted BlackBerry services. Instead, the government is negotiating with the Indian mobile operators to gain the lawful access to the BlackBerry services.





At the start of this month, the Indian government was reportedly insisting RIM to provide access to encrypted email services. Time and again, RIM has been adamant stating that no key or technology exists for providing access to encrypted emails. Looks like the government has giving up insisting and is now talking to the mobile operators for gaining lawful access.

Pillai said, We don t have to do with BlackBerry. We are only dealing with the service providers. He further added, We will be setting a deadline with them but he declined to share the date. In the past too, the Indian government had given a deadline to RIM twice but none of the services got banned. We don t intend to see the services banned but the entire tussle has encouraged many for moving from BlackBerry services to other options.




Back in the past, when RIM services got banned in Saudi Arabia, several users started moving from BlackBerry Messenger to free services like Nimbuzz for messaging. The same trait has been observed with Indian BlackBerry services users. The situation seems like a perfect opportunity for anyone to create an encrypted messaging service albeit with lawful access, only if it was technologically feasible.