After being told it had to prevent encrypted e-mails being sent over Blackberry mobile servers, Research in Motion has come forth to say it simply cannot comply with that request.
India has been the source of a lot of turmoil in recent years, with terrorist attacks and local violence causing them to quickly put new security laws into place.
One of them, it says, it being violated by Research in Motion because it allows e-mails to be encrypted and sent through mobile signals in India. The country now requires that all digital communications be able to be tapped into by national authorities.
But RIM says this isn’t something it can control, because it’s not the one doing the encrypting.
“It’s not possible to do so, because the keys of that service are with the corporate enterprises and corporate entity that owns the server,” said RIM VP Robert Crow at a news conference in New Delhi.
Because of all these new regulations, RIM has already been forced to make drastic changes in the region and has been criticized by the government for a continuously slow response to change.
Shutting down service entirely in the country seems like the easiest solution, but RIM has millions of customers in the area. So to simply disconnect all of those subscriptions would mean millions of dollars down the drain.
And this is at a time when Blackberry numbers are decreasing at a faster clip than any other mobile platform has in years. So it’s not exactly a rosy situation over at RIM headquarters right now.
Then again, India has threatened RIM before and failed to go through with the threats, so it may not be all doom and gloom for the mobile manufacturer.
Nevertheless, another headache on top of the mountains of migraines RIM is already suffering is a situation no one could be envious of.
