Blackberry Users: The India Government is Spying on You!

In the India turns communist department, Canadian based Research in Motion (RIM) may allow the Indian government to intercept your emails sent over the Blackberry. This issue has been ongoing with the Department of Telecom and RIM since the Indian government can’t break RIM’s 256k encryption code technology.

 

According to officials close to the development, Canadian High Commissioner David Malone and RIM officials met telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura on May 7. “It was explained by RIM that it should be possible for the government to monitor emails to non-business enterprise customers.” That is a major change in stance and should have you worried.

 

A RIM spokesperson said: “RIM operates in more than 135 countries around the world and respects the regulatory requirements of governments. RIM does not comment on confidential regulatory matters or speculation on such matters in any given country.” That’s bullshit and what they are doing is caving into the government so that they can officially launch in India. Watch for RIM to make a major announcement in India in the next few months.

 

“By virtue of Sec 79 of IT Act 2000, network service providers are made liable for all third-party data or information made available by them. Therefore, if such an action takes place, then potential of legal action arising cannot be ruled out,” Mr Duggal said to the Economic Times.

 

He said there was a need for providing a more comprehensive solution to the issue. “BlackBerry issue has various ramifications — jurisdiction, location of servers, applicable law and a sovereign government exercising the right to intercept data located in foreign land. These piecemeal solutions will not work,” he said.

 

According to the Economic Times, The issue came to light after the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence expressed inability to intercept any exchange of messages between hawala dealers and militant groups that use BlackBerry device.

 

If that’s the case then allow monitoring of suspected terrorist groups and not the average business person. This issue is a slippery slope that may lead to new forms of government spying.