RIM Might Get Deadline Extension in India to Resolve BlackBerry Issues

The Indian government plans to give Research In Motion (RIM) a ninety days deadline extension, in order for the company to come up with a technical solution that satisfies the country's security concerns.

RIM came under fire this summer, when several countries threatened to ban the BlackBerry data services, which include corporate email and instant messaging.

The reasons cited by nations such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and India, were related to their national security agencies not being able to tap into the highly encrypted BlackBerry communications.

In July, the Indian government gave RIM fifteen days to find a solution that would allow authorities to monitor the data. This deadline was later extended to August 31 and then again to October 31.

Now, according to the Economic Times of India (ET), which claims to have seen an internal Home Ministry memo, RIM will get until January 31 to find a solution.

The company previously said that it is willing to give the government access to the BlackBerry Messenger data, but stressed that it cannot decrypt emails, as it doesn't have the required keys.

Corporate emails are encrypted between the smartphones and the BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) ran by private organizations. RIM acts only as carrier for the encrypted data.

The company offered to provide BES identification data, that would allow authorities to subpoena emails directly from those organizations, but the solution was rejected.

Until the new date RIM must also provide a solution for BlackBerry Messenger that doesn't involve data first leaving the country and then being handed over to security agencies on request.

This can be achieved by setting up a RIM-operated server in India. However, it still doesn't solve the corporate email problem.

Last week, the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced that after negotiations with RIM, the BlackBerry data services are now compliant with the country's national security legislation, although the technical aspects of the agreement were not disclosed.