India, RIM meet again to discuss security concerns
NEW DELHI/OTTAWA (Reuters) - Research In Motion met Indian officials on Thursday to discuss government security concerns that e-mail sent on the BlackBerry device can't be traced or intercepted, but there was no news of a resolution.
The government, wary of attacks by militants, sees the handheld BlackBerry as a potential security risk and wants RIM to install servers in India so that e-mail traffic can be monitored.
RIM said it won't disclose confidential talks with any government. It told Indian customers in a recent letter that it does not have a 'master key' to decrypt messages and its security system does not have a 'back door' entry.
Two sources familiar with the issue said RIM held talks with the government on Thursday, and members of the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi were also seen at the telecoms ministry headquarters.
Indian media say commission officials have been attending the meetings to try and help resolve the issue.
The Canadian foreign ministry declined to comment on the meeting, but said it hopes RIM and the Indian Department of Telecommunications can reach a "mutually beneficial" solution.
"The government of Canada fully supports Research in Motion and encourages the government of India to treat all companies in a fair and equitable manner," said Foreign Affairs spokesman Michael O'Shaughnessy.
Indian Telecoms Minister Andimuthu Raja said last week the Canadian firm had assured the government it would provide a solution in two months.
RIM said last Friday it does not have a copy of the customer's encryption key and would "simply be unable to accommodate" any such request.
"The BlackBerry security architecture was also purposefully designed to perform as a global system independent of geography," the company said in a letter.
"The location of data centers and the customer's choice of wireless network are irrelevant factors from a security perspective since end-to-end encryption is utilized."
Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM has some 114,000 BlackBerry subscribers in the fast-growth Indian market.
(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy in New Delhi, and David Ljunggren and Susan Taylor in Ottawa; Editing by Janet Guttsman)
