New UAE smartphone rules will affect others as well, RIM says

By on Apr 18, 2011 at 11:22 AM
Business April 18, 2011

The United Arab Emirates’ Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) on Saturday stated its intentions to limit the access its citizens have to RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Servers. RIM said on Sunday, however, that new regulations in the UAE will impact all smartphones and not just BackBerry devices. “The TRA has confirmed to RIM that any potential policy regarding enterprise services in the UAE would be an industry-wide policy applying equally to all enterprise solution providers,” RIM said in a statement. This is clearly a touchy subject for RIM. The secure smartphone maker has been at war for years with officials in India demanding access to corporate emails sent and received with its devices, and now the fight has spilled over into other countries. RIM insists that other companies are impacted by these regulations as well, however, and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis recently stormed out of an interview when pressed on the subject. Of course India’s regulations are affecting other companies, but RIM gets the most media attention because its devices have touted security so much since their introduction, and because RIM is the only company so far that said it cannot grant India the access it needs.

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18 Comments

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  • keymaker

    This issue will not affect anyone else that’s for sure, Rim is clearly lying. Everyone else is smart enough to work with governments behind close doors without making a big deal.

    • http://Accu-Berry.com Edwin Gomez

      so you rather have the USA government looking into all your emails no matter if its from a personal acct or corp acct. That’s what you are saying.

      • Anonymous

        As long as your not trying to blow up shit you will be ok.

      • J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghost

        Ever heard of J. Edgar Hoover? He blackmailed Senators to get a bigger budget….

    • Anonymous

      I think you miss the part where RIM itself doesn’t have access to the private keys corporations use to encrypt their BES data.

    • Nofan

      smart enough?

    • http://twitter.com/UrbanEnigma Yves

      So because RIM cares about it’s users privacy, that makes them not smart? Interesting logic. I consider my information, whether personal or professional, to be a “big deal”

  • FireSlash

    so only “backberry” devices? lol

  • Bill & May Onays

    RIM says BGR should throw in the towel.

  • Anonymous

    Well they can just stick their Krackberrys and turbans up their ‘RIM’s!

  • Anonymous

    None of this affects Android. None!!!! I challenge anyone that can find a single point of weakness on the Android platform, the most awesomest and powerful platform in the history of platforms. AND if you do mention a weakness, you may want to consider that Google may be doing it on purpose to flush out the Goohaters (aka Apple lovers)!

    • Johnsmiley

      The concern here is that BES stores corporate email on RIM’s servers. It is access to those emails that India and Saudi Arabia want. Google has probably already consented to allowing India access to Indian Gmail users. So this is not an issue of one platform being more secure than the other. Also, just so you know iOS is based on BSD which most professionals would consider to be equally as secure as Android which is based on Linux. The only difference is iOS doesn’t have Flash poking gaping security holes in it.

      • Anonymous

        I am sorry, but my fellow Goofans (aka Apple Haters) have told me that their nieces and nephews, each between 4-6 years old have broken into iOS devices by touching their screens. How’s that for secure. Yet, we have had upwards of 20 MIT scientists WITH CODE and not one can even turn on the Android devices. How’s that for security???? Not even an MIT scientist can get into an Android phone, not even turn it on to use it!

      • BerryKing

        By the way if you’ve been around BGR, you would know there was an article about malicious apps on Android that was downloading your personnal infos and sending it elsewhere. ON TOP OF ALL, Google deleted the malicious apps from their stores, anonymously broke into all the users phones who downloaded it and deleted it from their phones and sent them an email. Hmmm, it was a nice way of correcting what was done wrong but knowing Google has access to my phone like that, i’m not to pleased nor do I feel safe.

  • sunHammer

    Why do people have such a hard time grasping this issue… if the government wants access to your corporate Windows network file server, do they ask Microsoft? Afterall, it’s a Microsoft product! No, they go directly to the company who runs the file server. This is no different with RIM. RIM has no access to a company’s mail server, if the government wants access, they have to go through the organization.

    • Anonymous

      Because we’re Americans (and some of us AmeriCans) and we are open and free (and, some of us more wiDely oPen than others).

  • Rtk777

    Don’t be a wanker, next they will want to know how many times you sh*t in a day. Plus, it would be easy for people to get away with corporate espionage. I can see it now, one company bribing government officials for access to their competitors emails and such, in India. I’m extemely thankful that there is a company like RIM in the world today.

    • Time2Work

      How many times do you sh*t per day? There’s an App for that…
      I’m glad RIM is sticking to their guns. I’m happy knowing my info is secure.

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