After BlackBerry won a reprieve, Google and Skype stepped into the firing line yesterday as India’s security agencies widened their crackdown on telecom firms.
India’s 1.1 million BlackBerry users heaved a sigh of relief late on Monday after the government gave the smartphone’s manufacturer a two-month window to provide a permanent solution to avert a ban on its corporate message services.
Security forces in India, battling insurgencies ranging from Kashmir in the northwest to the far-flung northeast, are insisting that telecom groups give them the capability to monitor their data.
PHOTO: EPA
Skype, the Internet phone service, and Google, which uses powerful encryption technology for its Gmail e-mail service, are set to be next to receive an ultimatum from the spies in New Delhi.
“The notices to these entities will be issued beginning Tuesday [yesterday] and all of them will be asked to comply with the directive or else they will have to close down their networks,” a senior official told PTI news agency late on Monday.
India is also targeting “virtual private networks,” which give employees secure access to their company networks when they are working out of the office.
A spokesman for Google, Gaurav Bhaskar, said the company was yet to receive a notice.
“Once we receive it we will be in a better position to comment on what they are looking for,” he said, adding that he expected the concern to be the Gmail service.
The maker of the BlackBerry, Canada’s Research in Motion (RIM), has proposed setting up a server in India through which BlackBerry messages can be routed, the home ministry said in a statement.
RIM’s proposals for “lawful access” to its messages would be “operationalized immediately” and their feasibility assessed, the ministry said.
A RIM official said the company had not compromised its public commitment to make no special deals with governments.
Analysts note that other security-conscious nations such as China and Russia appear to be satisfied that their intelligence agencies have sufficient access to BlackBerry communications, although the arrangements between RIM and these countries are not known.
BlackBerry has also been facing a threatened Oct. 11 ban by the United Arab Emirates and has been negotiating with Saudi Arabia on security issues.
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