Canadian handset manufacturer Research In Motion, fresh-off a recent victory(?) in the UAE, has been given a hard deadline by the nation of India to comply with the country’s intelligence laws. According to minutes for a recent meeting between RIM and the Indian government:
RIM would be asked to adhere to the timeline of January 2011 to give the final solution wherein lawful access for BlackBerry messenger will not involve the overseas data path. Intelligence Bureau (IB) and National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), which had attended the discussions, found that the solutions offered by RIM (for BlackBerry messenger) are prime-facie agreeable. The timelines of January 2011 were also agreeable.
Presumably — as they did in the UAE — RIM will setup BlackBerry infrastructure within India’s borders in order to assuage concerns about international intelligence sovereignty. Previously, RIM called banning BlackBerry use in India “futile,” but it looks as though the handset manufacturer will agree to the governments prerequisites in order to continue operating in the second most populous country; population: 1.18 billion.
Read
