Skip to main content

Report: RIM operating surveillance facility in India

blackberry-torch-9810-l
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Back in 2010, the Indian government set multiple deadlines for RIM to provide the government with access to encrypted BlackBerry communication or face a shutdown of BlackBerry services in the country. Those deadlines came and went, with RIM insisting that it has no back door that would let government authorities (or anybody else) decrypt and access communications on its BlackBerry Enterprise services. However, by the beginning of 2011 RIM had been working with the Indian government to provide access to consumer-level BlackBerry Messenger and BlackBerry Internet Services (BIS) email—and now the Wall Street Journal reports RIM is operating a small surveillance facility in Mumbai to process government requests for access to BlackBerry user communications.

According to the report, government officials must convince RIM they have enough legal justification to require access to a user’s messages before the company will cooperate. However, the Indian government still wants access to decrypted messages sent via BlackBerry Enterprise Services, and also wants to locate officials at RIM’s headquarters in Canada to facilitate getting surveillance requests to the company.

Recommended Videos

RIM has consistently claimed that it has no magical back door that would enable it to snoop on encrypted communications sent via BlackBerry Enterprise Server; when customers sign on to the service, they generate their own encryption keys, and the architecture of the service prevents RIM from ever having a copy of them. RIM insists that architecture is identical around the world, but has led some industry watchers to speculate governments might require companies using BlackBerry Enterprise services to hand their encryption keys over to the government to be able to lawfully use the services.

India isn’t the only country where RIM has seen government demands for access to its services: the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and others have also demanded access to customer messages and threatened RIM with BlackBerry shutdowns. In each case so far, RIM has been able to work out agreements with the countries, although the details have never been disclosed and the Indian case is the first where RIM is believed to have set up a message surveillance center. In other cases, RIM is believes to have located BlackBerry servers within the country, rather than operating BlackBerry services off servers in North America and the United Kingdom.

RIM has not confirmed the existence of a monitoring center in India, so far telling media only that it as “delivered a solution” to the Indian government’s concerns.

Governments have insisted they need access to messages for security purposes, such as preventing attacks by militants and terrorists who might use encrypted communications to plan and coordinate attacks. However, critics have warned that some regimes might use communications access to suppress free speech and monitor activities of political opponents.

Geoff Duncan
Former Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
Topics
A new BlackBerry with a keyboard is still on the schedule for 2022
BlackBerry Key2 LE review

A new BlackBerry phone is still in the cards for 2022, according to hardware partner OnwardMobility. Following a breakup with TCL in 2020, BlackBerry partnered with the little-known Texas company OnwardMobility to launch a new phone in 2021. After missing that launch period, the Onward Mobility team shared an update this week, letting BlackBerry enthusiasts know that their phone was still coming.

"Everyone has eagerly awaited additional information following our last announcement, but 2021 was truly a challenging year to launch a new phone, much less one with the high expectations we set and the fact that we want to get it right!" the OnwardMobility team wrote, "While we encountered various delays that prevented us from shipping in 2021, we will be providing more regular updates starting this month that will clarify and answer many of your questions about the ultra-secure 5G enterprise smartphone (still with a keyboard!) we’re bringing to market."

Read more
Classic BlackBerries are finally losing suppport as company shuts down services
BlackBerry Key2. Credits: BlackBerry official.

After kickstarting the smartphone era, BlackBerry's classic devices and services are finally shutting down. No, not the Android-powered modern BlackBerries such as the KeyOne, Key2, and Key2 LE, but anything that ran a BlackBerry-branded operating system. Whether this is a classic QWERTY keyboard powered by BlackBerry 7, or the iPhone-inspired BlackBerry 10, or even the forgotten BlackBerry PlayBook OS -- it's all shutting down this month.
"As another milestone in the BlackBerry journey, we will be taking steps to decommission the legacy services for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1, and earlier versions, with an end of life or termination date of January 4, 2022," the company announced. "As of this date, devices running these legacy services and software through either carrier or Wi-Fi connections will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS, and 911 functionality. We have chosen to extend our service until then as an expression of thanks to our loyal partners and customers."
BlackBerry bids farewell to its longtime customers. Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
It's the end of an era for what was once a distinguished product that defined the market a decade ago. Even predating iMessage, the BlackBerry instant messaging service -- BBM -- was a great selling point for the product line. As iOS, Android, and WhatsApp began to dominate, BlackBerry devices began to fall by the wayside.
The company tried to rejuvenate its smartphone business by launching its own touchscreen phones and later its own operating system in 2013, but had little success. Unable to keep up,ity stopped the creation of smartphones in 2016 and licensed services to TCL Ltd. between 2016 to 2020. BlackBerry promised to launch a smartphone by the end of 2021 in partnership with OnwardMobility, but that hasn't panned out. 
The company has now shifted its focus to selling software. It briefly had a nostalgia-fueled increase in its share price this year, which later nearly returned to its original price. While the market has been saturated with multiple companies claiming a stake in the smartphone pie, hopefully, BlackBerry manages to return to some form of relevance with its current partnership. 

Read more
BlackBerry rises from the grave: New 5G phone with a keyboard coming in 2021
BlackBerry Key2. Credits: BlackBerry official.

BlackBerry is the smartphone brand that steadfastly refuses to die. The presumed-dead name has been resurrected once again, this time by a new company called OnwardMobility. It will work with manufacturer FIH Mobile to create and sell a 5G BlackBerry Android phone with a physical keyboard, ready for a potential release in the U.S. and Europe during the first half of 2021.

You read that right: A new BlackBerry phone with a physical keyboard and 5G, running Google’s Android software, is coming next year. TCL Communications was the last company to produce BlackBerry smartphones. It did so under license from BlackBerry Ltd., which continues to provide mobile security services, but isn’t in the hardware business anymore. TCL let its license lapse in February 2020 when modern, Android-based BlackBerry phones became a thing of the past. Until now.

Read more