A Raja, Minister of Communications, extended an assurance to Blackberry service providers that they would not be banned. However, highly placed officials of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) affirmed their intention to screen all push-mail services. This means around 2 lakh additional users would be monitored.

Most telecom operators in India provide services similar to the Blackberry. While their devices work on Symbian and Microsoft operating systems, Blackberry uses its unique patented technology. As a top DoT official confirmed: “Most push-mail services provided by telecom operators in the country host their servers outside the country and the department would revisit the norms under which these operators are providing their services.”

The government, however, has been continuing to pressurize Research-In-Motion (RIM), the Canadian company that developed the Blackberry knowhow, to allow email interception as a security move. DoT maintains that it earlier directed all concerned telecom players to stop Blackberry services, due to objections raised by the Home Ministry, by December. However, in response to requests, the concerned parties were permitted to continue operations till March.

All these goings-on bring to focus the core issues of security and privacy. These happenings also clearly signal the need to play out a highly complex balancing act on the part of the parties involved. While temporary reprieve has been granted to Blackberry and Blackberry-like service providers, sooner or later both parties- the government and the telecom operators- would have to sort out the real issues and till such time no one can positively claim that the Blackberry and its clones are here to stay.