August 6, 2010 by Alexei M
Following last week’s announcement that the United Arab Emirates government is planning to ban some Blackberry smartphone services from being used in the country, further regions have voiced concerns about the security of the devices.
Lebanon has now expressed fears that the Blackberry phones, provided by company Research in Motion (RiM) are not compliant with the country’s Telecoms Regulatory Authority, who will be assessing the levels of security on the phones. In addition, Saudi Arabian officials have called for the messenger function on Blackberries in their country to be disabled, as of August 6th, due to security concerns.
A Lebanese spokesperson commented on the decision: “This is prompted by the increase of security issues that have been found with the telecommunications networks in Lebanon. This is related to the ability of law enforcement agencies to access the data as may be required by law. We need to make an arrangement with BlackBerry or come to an understanding with them that satisfies law enforcement concerns. We intend to start talks with Research in Motion next week.”
A spokesperson for RIM retaliated: “Our products are designed to preclude RIM, or any third party, from reading encrypted information under any circumstances since RIM does not store or have access to the encrypted data. RIM cannot accommodate any request for a copy of a customer’s encryption key, since at no time does RIM, or any wireless network operator or any third party, ever possess a copy of the key. We cooperate with all governments with a consistent standard and the same degree of respect. Any claims that we provide, or have ever provided, something unique to the government of one country that we have not offered to the governments of all countries, are unfounded.”
Following the announcements from Saudi and Lebanon, the Indian government has also stated that they are currently considering withdrawing Blackberry services.
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