Saudi Arabia announces ban on BlackBerry’s IM

An article by Bilal    2 Comments

The two Gulf States have recently announced the bans over certain services provided by BlackBerry. United Arab Emirates was the first one announce its ban, although it won’t come in effect until later in October. Saudi Arabia however has decided to take a much grimmer stand and announced it ban over the BlackBerry’s IM service. It is probably one of the most used feature in BlackBerry at the moment among young people.



RIM under fire

Saudi Arabia Telecom watchdog, Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), said the ban would last until state’s three mobile phone operators “fulfil the regulatory requirements it has requested”. The requirements however were not revealed to the general public. This is not the first time BlackBerry’s maker RIM (Research in Motion) has come under fire by governments. India has also raised its concern over RIM’s Data Encryption of its internet service, which makes it impossible for the governments to monitor.

Privacy Concerns

RIM currently encrypts the data and routes it overseas, making it impossible for the governments to monitor. There are fears that such feature could be exploited by the criminals/terrorists.

Meanwhile Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) has responded to a report in India’s Economic Times reported saying the firm will allow Indian security authorities to monitor Blackberry services.

“We won’t compromise on the security architecture of our corporate e-mails,” said RIM’s India spokesman, Satchit Gayakwad.

“We respect the requirements of regulatory bodies in terms of security, but we also look at the customer’s need for privacy.”

And in a further statement the firm said it co-operated with all governments “with a consistent standard and the same degree of respect”.

Source: BBC

BlackBerry will have to come up with a solution pretty soon. BlackBerry’s  popularity has recently grown among the younger generations, unlike its usual customer, the corporate businessmen. BlackBerry also recently announced it new handset “Torch” which features a touch screen and a sliding keyboard.