The Indian government has asked Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of popular Blackberry smartphone devices, to provide tools for monitoring its enterprise mailing service.

The authorities had set a deadline of August 31 for the company to provide access to its services on the smartphones or face a ban in the country. RIM wants to ensure confidentiality and secrecy for its customers with the high level of encryption applied while the authorities want to be able to monitor the data for potential security threats.  

The confidentiality mechanism scrambles the emails when sent and then unscrambles them when it reaches its destinations. The security agencies were concerned over the BlackBerry’s Enterprise and Messenger services which can be used by potentials threats to the country.  

The company had earlier given security agencies an existing tool that allows them to monitor text on encrypted BlackBerry messenger and the government had cleared services such as the BlackBerry messenger, voice calls and short-messaging services. However, the corporate e-mail service was not cleared as security officials were not able to intercept it for monitoring.

The security agencies are now testing tools provided by the company for intercepting BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and will submit a report to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The Department of Telecom and the security agencies are now waiting for technical solution to access the BlackBerry Enterprise Service in which a private network is created among users within a server.

It also said that the Department of Telecommunications will analyze all such services provided by servers located in the country. This indicates that the authorities hold their stand that RIM should install a server in the country.

Meanwhile the DoT has also asked other service providers like Google, Skype and Virtual Private Network (VPN) to provide tools for monitoring their services within 60 days.