The Hindu : National : “No plan to ban use of BlackBerry”

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Saturday, Mar 15, 2008
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National

“No plan to ban use of BlackBerry”

Sandeep Joshi

NEW DELHI: Communications and Information Technology Minister A. Raja on Friday said there were no plans to ban the use of BlackBerry services in India, which provides wireless e-mail solution to mobile professionals and individuals.

The issue came to light following Union Home Ministry’s letter to the Department of Telecom on use of BlackBerry phones, a product of Canadian firm ‘Research In Motion’ (RIM), due to security reasons.

“There is no need to ban the BlackBerry operations, but we need to look into its security aspects as nation’s security is of paramount importance. We will discuss the issue in the Telecom Commission, the policy making body,” Mr. Raja told reporters at a function here.

Keen to resolve issue

Speaking on the issue, Telecom Secretary S. Behura said: “We are keen to resolve the issue at the earliest but there is no question of banning the Blackberry services.”

The issue arose after Tata Teleservices was denied permission by the Ministry of Home Affairs to launch services due to security concerns. The Union Home Ministry has sought access to all communications made through the BlackBerry at any given time, which is currently not done as the device works through a server and data is transferred in an encrypted format.

DoT intervention sought

Expressing concern over the development, all operators using offering BlackBerry services that has over 5-lakh subscribers nationwide has sought DoT’s intervention in the issue.

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