It hasn’t been the best of months for BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. Less than a week after Saudi Arabia briefly showed its teeth by disabling some BlackBerry services for a few hours, India has given the company until month’s end to address security concerns of its own.
As Enterprise Mobile Today reports, India has become the latest country to ratchet up the pressure on the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker, demanding it make some concessions to allow the government and its law enforcement agencies to monitor content sent and received from the devices.
“Our message to RIM and service providers is that if they don’t come up with a technical solution by Aug. 31, then the home ministry will take a view and will shut down BlackBerry Messenger and business enterprises services,” a spokesman for the Indian ministry said in a statement to Reuters.
The government also said mobile phone operators would by law have to shut these services if Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) failed to meet their demands.
India is playing hard ball with Research In Motion, giving the BlackBerry maker an Aug. 31 deadline to address and resolve the government’s security concerns or else risk having service terminated in the world’s second-most populated country.
Government officials reiterated the deadline Thursday, according to a Reuters report, giving the Canadian-based company roughly three weeks to work out a compromise with India as it did last week with Saudi Arabia when service for some BlackBerry users was shuttered for roughly four hours.
At issue is how governments such as India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which was the first nation to issue the ultimatum and is still sticking with an Oct. 11 deadline of its own, can tap into and monitor mobile communications traffic for national security purposes.
