By PRASANTA SAHU
NEW DELHI --India said Tuesday it was still undecided as to whether it would allow Research In Motion Ltd. to offer its BlackBerry corporate email services in the country beyond Aug. 31, though other services such as the BlackBerry messenger, voice calls and short-messaging services can be used.
India's government earlier Tuesday started discussions with RIM executives on ways to allow security agencies to monitor the company's BlackBerry corporate email and messenger services, a senior government official, who didn't wish to be identified, told reporters.
India last week threatened to ban the two services unless the Canadian company and local telecommunications operators find a solution by Aug. 31 to allow security agencies to monitor them. Indian agencies fear that since they can't monitor the heavily-encrypted services, terrorists may use these services to communicate.
"It (discussions) will continue for the week and whole of the next week. Discussions are on both the services," the official said.
RIM officials couldn't be immediately reached for comment.
The company--which has over a million of its about 41 million subscribers in the country-- has already assured India it will meet the Aug. 31 deadline to provide technical solutions that will allow security agencies to monitor the two services, India's government has said earlier.
Services such as Blackberry Internet, voice calls and short messaging have already been made available to security agencies for monitoring.
Earlier Monday, the Press Trust of India news agency, citing unidentified officials, said that RIM has agreed to provide local security agencies partial access to its messenger service by Sept. 1, and to complete the project by year's end.
However, the report didn't touch upon the corporate email service.
India is one of several countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that have raised security concerns about BlackBerry services.
Saudi Arabia, which had threatened to stop the services, has said it will allow BlackBerry messenger services to continue as some of its regulatory requirements have been satisfied.
Write to Prasanta Sahu at prasanta.sahu@dowjones.com
Source - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704554104575436463462990340.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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