India told Google and Skype on Wednesday that they must set up servers in the country to allow law enforcers to screen traffic, as it widened its security offensive on Internet communications firms.
The government has already told the maker of the BlackBerry smartphones, Research in Motion (RIM), that it must set up a server in India to allow security forces to intercept the phone’s encrypted messaging system.
“We have made this clear to other companies” that they must do the same, Indian Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said.
He added that notices were being dispatched to Google, which uses powerful encryption technology for its Gmail e-mail service, and Skype, the Internet phone provider.
“All people who operate communication services in India should have a server in India,” Pillai told a press conference. “This applies to all.”
The government’s statements came two days after it gave BlackBerry a two-month window to provide a way to read the smartphone’s corporate e-mail and messenger chatting services, or face a shutdown of the core functions of the phone.
Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia, a key BlackBerry rival, has already acceded to the government’s demands, announcing this week it would set up a server in India by early November to give security forces access to data carried by its smartphones.
India’s government, battling multiple insurgencies in areas from Kashmir in the northwest to the remote northeast, is worried that militants could use encrypted services to coordinate attacks.
“It is basically a debate between public security versus the privacy of citizens,” said Nareshchandra Singh, principal research analyst at Gartner global consultancy. “It is my belief that the upper hand is with security rather than privacy and the government will have to draw a fine line.”
Home ministry officials say Skype, which uses Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol (VOIP) technology to send calls over the Internet, poses a difficulty for domestic intelligence services.
“It is very difficult to track communications on VOIP, especially if the servers are not within India,” Singh said.
BlackBerry’s reprieve came after the government said the smartphone’s Canadian maker had made proposals to give security forces “lawful access” to messages carried on the handsets.
The government began testing RIM’s monitoring proposals on Wednesday to assess their effectiveness.
“Discussions with BlackBerry are still continuing. We have given them 60 days’ time” to find a complete solution to government demands for access, Pillai said.
Meanwhile, New Zealand police said yesterday that Google did not commit a criminal offense when it collected data from wireless networks for its “Street View” mapping service.
The New Zealand Privacy Commissioner called in police in June after Google admitted that its cars taking photographs of cities in more than 30 countries had inadvertently gathered personal data sent over unsecured wireless networks.
Privacy regulators in Australia, Europe, the US and Canada also launched investigations into data the Web giant’s camera-equipped cars collected while taking photos of streets and houses.
New Zealand police said Google’s actions did not constitute a criminal offense and they had referred the matter back to the Privacy Commissioner.
“An investigation by police has determined that there is no evidence to suggest a criminal offense has been committed,” Detective Senior Sergeant John van den Heuvel said.
However, Van den Heuvel said the case underlined the need for Web users to put in place security measures when using wireless networks.
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