Indian Gov Aware Corporate BlackBerry Emails Only Obtainable from Enterprise Customers

Research In Motion (RIM) is working to give Indian authorities lawful interception capabilities to BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) communications and said the government is aware it cannot get similar direct access to enterprise emails.

Last Friday, the Indian minister of communications Mr. Sachin Pilot, announced that the government can now intercept voice, text messages and regular email sent by BlackBerry users, but it has yet to receive access to BlackBerry Messenger and enterprise email data.

India threatened to ban BlackBerry data services in the country if it is not provided with a solution for lawful access to these communications, amidst fears that they could be used by terrorists.

The deadline was later extended to January 31, 2011, due to RIM’s willingness to cooperate. “RIM confirms that it is fully cooperating with the government of India and is enabling carriers in India to be able to provide the same degree of lawful access to consumer data services, including BlackBerry Messenger, that occurs with respect to other consumer products and services offered by other companies including RIM's competitors,” the Canadian company said in a statement according to ITP.

“The government has acknowledged that any potential policy or approach that requires lawful access to strongly encrypted enterprise data sent to or from corporate and government organizations would need to occur through the enterprise customers themselves since RIM has no ability to provide the customers' encryption keys,” it added.

The company previously explained that in the case of corporate emails, the encryption is performed between the devices and the BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) operated by the companies themselves.

This means that data is already encrypted when it passes through RIM’s network and the BlackBerry manufacturer doesn’t have the keys to decrypt it.

It’s unclear at this point if the government is ready to accept this, as subpoenaing BES owners for email data might defeat the purpose of some investigations.