RIM To Allow Indian Authorities Partial Access To BlackBerry Messenger

Last week, we reported that BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion had begun working on "technical solutions," with India in particular, in hopes that their BlackBerry devices wouldn't get banned from the country altogether. Those technical solutions seemed to have been reached, because a senior government source has just revealed that RIM has found a way to calm India's security fears, at least for now: by allowing marginal access to the company's BlackBerry Messenger services.

This fix seems to be a temporary one, until the full roll-out of the plans can come into play later this year. According to the report, BBM and Enterprise email are both being focused on here. According to the source, who couldn't be named, RIM is ready to allow Indian authorities the ability to intercept data transmitted between BlackBerry devices. With the Indian Department of Telecommunications working on this day and night, they have asked at least three wireless operators in the country to install monitoring capabilities for BBM and BlackBerry Enterprise email services, by August 31st.

The source goes on to say that partial access will be granted to BBM for now, which will begin on September 1st of this year, but that full access will be completely allowed to be monitored by the end of this year. The fact that some kind of agreement has been reached means that both the government and the company have reached some kind of middle-ground here. And with RIM's four principles also published last week, means that users of the devices shouldn't be too worried that their world has just been turned upside down. The story is still developing, especially the security issues from the United Arab Emirates, but RIM doesn't have too long before a solution has to be reached. We'll have to wait and see if it's the same one used here, for India.

[via The Guardian]