The last we had heard about RIM’s tribulations in India over providing lawful interception capabilities to authorities, an interim solution was being trialled until the end of October, and they had already provided partial access to BlackBerry Messenger data, but the unique encryption keys generated by private enterprise servers are not accessible by RIM. There was a rumour that India suggested e-mails be forwarded to internet service providrs after they had been decrypted and landed in plain text on mail servers, and though there’s been no word of the status of that particular solution, today an anonymous government official has confirmed that they have given RIM another two months to figure something out.
The solutions RIM has put in place for the same problems in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have likely helped to convince the India government to provide an extension. Another official had even hinted that they would give BlackBerry until January to sort out lawful interception of BBM data. India is a huge market, and accordingly RIM has indicated that they will continue to negotiate in good faith until the issue is resolved, and I have no doubt that in time it will be, even if they need another two months after December.
[via Bloomberg]