Earlier this week Indian officials announced that the country would consider suspending BlackBerry data services in the country if holding company Research in Motion (RIM) refused to allow the government access to encrypted messages sent over the BlackBerry network. 

 

At present all BlackBerry data traffic internationally is rerouted to RIM server farms in other countries such as Canada, the US and the UK. 

 

Recently several countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates voiced concerns that the movement of this data to other territories without sufficient monitoring may pose a domestic security risk. As a result RIM offered Saudi Arabian officials access to encrypted data messages sent over the BlackBerry network in order to avoid having BlackBerry services terminated in that country. 

 

In response to the Indian debacle, RIM has revealed that “Although [the company] cannot disclose confidential regulatory discussions that take place with any government, RIM assures its customers that it genuinely tries to be as cooperative as possible with governments in the spirit of supporting legal and national security requirements, while also preserving the lawful needs of citizens and corporations”

 

The company also added that it does not intend to make any changes to its international server architecture in order to placate concerned countries. 

 

Thus far the Indian government has yet to respond regarding how it intends to move forward.