India to get access to messenger, says RIM

New Delhi, Jan 13: Research in Motion (RIM), has given the government of India lawful access to its messenger services, but has excluded access to its corporate email services. The government of India had set RIM, a deadline of Jan 31 to come up with a solution to provide access to its BlackBerry messenger and corporate email services.

Indian security agencies had expressed their concerns over the use of these services by terrorists to plot another 26/11 type of attack. This led the government to ask RIM to provide access to its BlackBerry messenger and Corporate email services. Initially RIM had refused to accede to the government's request. It is then that the government threatened to ban RIM's services in India.

Referring to the developments, RIM on Jan 13, issued a customer update saying, "We also wish to underscore, once again, that this enablement of lawful access does not extend to BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which is essentially an enterprise VPN solution."

RIM"s encryption technology has raised concerns in several countries that BlackBerry may be used for terrorist attacks or other illegal activity. Apart from India, UAE and Saudi Arabia are also at loggerheads with RIM over its corporate email services and had threatened to ban the BlackBerry.

OneIndia News