India is threatening to ban Blackberry!

According to multiple reports, last month, India threatened Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the BlackBerry smartphones, to address its security concerns or face having its services suspended.

India has asked for encrypted BlackBerry communications to be made easily available to its intelligence and law enforcement agencies, saying that the services could be used by militant groups to carry out attacks. The ministry also said that mobile phone operators would be obliged by law to shut its corporate e-mail and messaging services if RIM fails to meet the demands.

Officials said that RIM proposed tracking e-mails without sharing encryption details, but that was not enough. The demands followed RIM's deal with Saudi Arabia, which allowed government access to its encrypted data. But while Saudi Arabia only targeted the instant messaging service [read related story on page 58], India sought access to both e-mail and messenger.

Following issues with BlackBerry, many reports suggested that India was considering requesting Google Inc, Skype Inc and other online service providers to allow the country's law enforcement agencies access to private communications on their networks.