14 DAY TRIAL // The matter of privacy and security is a sensible one in the telecommunications world. The CEO of a company that's one of the leaders in privacy and security, BlackBerry made some bold statements regarding the state of encryption debate.
According to John Chen, companies should not refuse access to their phones after receiving lawful access requests from government institutions.
In a recent blog post, BlackBerry's CEO says that while his company treasures privacy of its customers above all else, the “privacy commitment does not extend to criminals.”
He also links to a story from back October when Apple refused to provide government access to an iPhone running iOS 7.0 that belonged to a known drug dealer because it would “substantially tarnish the brand.”
John Chen suggests that putting the name of the brand above a greater good is not what tech companies should do and that they should all work with government institutions and provide them with what's necessary when it comes to criminals.
“We reject the notion that tech companies should refuse reasonable, lawful access requests”
Even though Chen does not imply that every major player in the smartphone business should hand over the keys to its castle to the government, he does suggest that they should positively respond to “reasonable, lawful access requests.”
John Chen emphasizes the fact that his company will never build any backdoors in its smartphones that would allow the government or any other third-party to access these devices.
Also, BlackBerry will never allow government access to their servers and John Chen is very clear that his company does not intend to do that in the future either.
In fact, the Canadian company made the decision to exit the Pakistani market recently because the government wanted to monitor BlackBerry's BES servers.
“Technology, over the course of human existence, can be both used and abused. We all have a right to privacy as well as public protection. We must balance these, and the world’s tech leaders must help consumers and governments alike make informed decisions,” said John Chen.