Deal comes after India threatens to shut down BlackBerry service
Indian authorities will be permitted to have some access to BlackBerry communications in India, a Research in Motion representative tells Reuters. India’s Department of Telecommunications had asked RIM and other mobile companies to allow it to monitor the smartphones by August 31. Otherwise, India would consider shutting down the services if no settlement was reached. “[RIM has] assured partial access to its Messenger services by 1 September and agreed to provide full access by the end of the year,” says an Indian government official. The issue revolved around Enterprise customers, who have a higher level of security for their phone messages and therefore prevented Indian officials from intercepting messages. It’s believed the terrorist attack in Mumbai was partially planned using encrypted Blackberry messages.