As telecom service providers like Airtel, Vodafone, RCom, the Tatas and the government-run BSNL and MTNL are offering BlackBerry services, it is the responsibility of these operators to ensure that the security agencies get access to all services they offer.
The maker of BlackBerry phones, Research in Motion (RIM), has conveyed to the operators that services like email and voicemail can be intercepted by the security agencies but no commitment has been given to services like BlackBerry Messager.
RIM had said on Tuesday that not only the company but even operators can decipher the encrpted data on its smart phones.
While expressing its inability to share access, RIM had said that the security architecture for its enterprise customers is based on a symmetric key system whereby the customers create their own key and only they possess the copy of the encryption.
“RIM does not possess a master key nor does any backdoor exist in the system that would allow RIM or any third party to gain an unauthorised access to the key or corporate data,” the company had said.
RIM further added that it will be unable to accommodate any request for a copy of a customer’s encryption key since at no time does RIM, or any wireless network operator, ever possess a copy of the key.
There are about 1 million BlackBerry subscribers registered with different operators.