Recently, BlackBerry users in the UAE complained that an update of a firmware has resulted in decreased battery life and system crashes.

A fix for the contentious firmware update by a United Arab Emirates carrier - which significantly enabled the cellular service provider to spy on its BlackBerry users - has been issued by the BlackBerry maker, Research In Motion (RIM).

It should be noted that more than 145,000 BlackBerry users are held by the carrier Etisalat on its network, and these customers were offered an over-the-air software update a few weeks ago, the basic motive of which was to improve performance. However, soon the users started complaining that the update had negative impacts on the handset, which included decreased battery life, as well as system crashes.

The update, realized as a mobile application, was developed by SS8 - an expert in electronic surveillance and law enforcement products.

According to RIM, this app is a telecommunication surveillance program and it can enormously permit unauthorized access to data on the handset, including e-mails, and personal information.

In a note to customers, the BlackBerry-maker said: "The Etisalat update is not a RIM-authorized update and was not developed by RIM. Independent sources have concluded that the Etisalat update is not designed to improve performance of your BlackBerry handheld, but rather to send messages back to a central server."

In order to remove the surveillance application, the users of BlackBerry on Etisalat's network can go to RIM's Web site to download software.