New Delhi: Research in Motion has agreed to allow Indian security agencies to monitor its BlackBerry services, The Economic Times newspaper reported on Tuesday, after pressure from governments worried about national security.
RIM has offered to share with Indian security agencies its technical codes for corporate email services, open up access to all consumer emails within 15 days and also develop tools in six to eight months to allow monitoring of chats, the paper said, citing internal government documents.
RIM will provide further details on its proposals to the Indian telecoms ministry on Tuesday, the newspaper said.
A RIM India spokesman had no immediate comment on the report while a Telecoms Ministry spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
RIM on Monday pledged to satisfy the security needs both of customers and governments, a day after the United Arab Emirates threatened to cut off some BlackBerry services because authorities could not access encrypted messaging data.
India has raised security concerns with BlackBerry services, but is not planning a ban, the country's internal security chief said last week, adding the company had assured them that it would be addressing Indian government's concerns.
The news drove RIM's Nasdaq-listed shares down as much as 2.7 percent on Monday, before they recovered to trade down less than 1 percent as some analysts said they were optimistic that the security issue could be resolved.
The Blackberry's tight email security has been key to its popularity with businesses, and is RIM's main selling point against Apple Inc, Nokia and other rivals. But governments like the UAE, Saudi Arabia and India are concerned that those same features make it difficult for them to monitor BlackBerry messages for national security purposes.
The United States said it was disappointed that the UAE planned to cut off BlackBerry services, noting that the Gulf nation was setting a dangerous precedent in limiting freedom of information.
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