India still demanding RIM BES email access

The Indian government has not blocked BlackBerry Enterprise Server services within the country, even though Research In Motion did not meet the 31 January deadline to comply with its demands.

The Indian authorities are still demanding that the BlackBerry maker provide access to corporate email services that use BlackBerry Enterprise Server, according to The Economic Times of India.

In a bid to appease Indian officials, RIM provided access to its BlackBery Messenger (BBM) service and BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) email in January. However, the authorities are reportedly not satisfied with the concession and are pushing for full corporate email access.

This leaves the situation at a deadlock. RIM has always maintained that it is unable to provide encryption keys for BES services as it does not have them.

On 27 January, RIM vice president Robert Crow stated that "there is no possibility of us providing any kind of a solution. There is no solution, there are no keys to be handed", according to a report by Reuters India.

India — along with numerous others, including Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Kuwait — is demanding access as it is too difficult to monitor and intercept information sent over what is effectively a VPN.

In a separate report on Monday, Reuters India said that officials in Pakistan instructed carriers to stop supporting BlackBerry services but later reversed its decision.