RIM has Mumbai surveillance facility, reports say

Research In Motion set up a surveillance centre in India earlier this year to help law enforcement officials there tap into people's BlackBerry messages, according to reports.

The Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed sources on Friday as saying the Mumbai facility was able to return decoded BlackBerry emails and messages sent and received by individuals, as long as the security services requesting this data had legal authorisation to do so.

However, RIM only seems to be giving officials data from users of consumer BlackBerry services, as the company says it is unable to access communications between BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) users.

According to the report, Indian officials are displeased at both this limitation and the fact that RIM is insisting on doing the decoding itself, rather than giving the authorities the decryption tools. However, the sources noted that the Indian government is at least no longer trying to shut down RIM's services.

RIM said at the start of this year that it would help Indian authorities get access to consumer-level emails and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) messages if needed. This followed a lengthy dispute that is similar to those between RIM and the governments of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), all of whom cite security concerns for their desire to intercept BlackBerry communications.