New Delhi: The BlackBerry maker —Research In Motion (RIM) —has not yet agreed to sharing the encryption details with the Government of India.

However, in view of the impending ban in India, it has extended an offer to the government under which it would lead an industry forum “focused on supporting the lawful access needs of law enforcement agencies while preserving the legitimate information security needs of corporations and other organisations.”

RIM, which is currently fighting a number of battles over its security policies, has proposed to find a solution to keep its customers and the Indian government happy. The vendor has also refuted claims that it provides special configurations of its platform for certain countries.

This forum would work closely with the Indian government to develop recommendations for policies and processes aimed at preventing the misuse of strong encryption technologies while preserving its benefits.

RIM has said it is not prepared to offer “special deals for specific countries,” and stressed that it maintains a “consistent global standard” for lawful government access to its services. As RIM points out in its claims that it has been unfairly targeted as the use of strong is not unique to the BlackBerry platform and is indeed a mandatory requirement for all enterprise-class email services.

But as RIM claims, “BlackBerry Enterprise Server security architecture was also purposefully designed to perform as a global system independent of geography. The location of infrastructure and the customer’s choice of wireless network are irrelevant factors from a security perspective where end-to-end encryption is employed.

The transmission of encrypted data is no more decipherable or less secure based on the location of RIM’s BlackBerry Infrastructure or the customer’s selection of a wireless network.”

RIM also states that it does not possess a “master key”, nor does any “back door” exist in the system that would allow RIM or any third party, under any circumstances, to gain access to encrypted corporate information.
—iGovernment Bureau