Few nations are concerned over the security threats that the BlackBerry poses as the data are routed abroad. The countries like India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates feel that since the data the users of BlackBerry provided or get are via servers located on internationally territories and route via overseas it can be intercepted by others and can violate the nation’s security system.
India wants the data that are processed or used by the Indian BlackBerry users to be accessible by the law enforcement and intelligence department from the Research In Motion Ltd the makers of BlackBerry. Unless RIM agrees to do that India is going to put a ban on the Smartphone. The ban was to be enforced from Aug 31 but now they have given 60 days more to RIM to conduct the research on how feasible India’s demand of data accessibility is.
Like India, Indonesia too is concerned about foreign countries intercepting the country’s data. Hence Indonesia wants to have a RIM server in its country so the data is not routed to offshore.
Both Lebanon and Saudi Arabia are in the process of reviewing the security threat that BlackBerry might pose. Saudi Arabia has already stopped the BlackBerry service across the kingdom but it is not clear if this ban will be permanent and if not for how long it will be in effect. UAE too is starting to put on a ban on the BlackBerry’s e-mail, Web browsing and instant messaging from Monday, but on Friday some kind of deal was made, however, details about it were not made public yet.
Will this likely ban or threat of doing it affect BlackBerry and its popularity in these nations? (ENSNN)
Popularity: 4% [?]
