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BlackBerry denies Gulf security fears

Smartphone ban likely to begin this week?

By Steve Evans

Research in Motion (RIM) has hit back at reports that a number of Gulf states are considering banning certain functions of the BlackBerry over security concerns.

According to reports the United Arab Emirates is looking to stop the smartphones from sending e-mails, accessing the internet, and delivering instant messages to other BlackBerry handsets while Saudi Arabia wants to block the BlackBerry-to-BlackBerry instant messaging service.

The UAE ban is likely to start in October with the Saudi ban beginning much sooner, possibly as early as this week.

Reports state that the UAE is unhappy about not being able to monitor emails sent and received on BlackBerrys, which raise "judicial, social and national security concerns", the BBC reports the UAE’s telecoms regulator TRA as saying.

Further reports have suggested that RIM was considering allowing governments access to customers’ messages to stop the service from being banned. RIM however has come out fighting, denying that it has ever granted concessions to a government.

"There is only one BlackBerry enterprise solution available to our customers around the world and it remains unchanged in all of the markets we operate in," the company said in a statement. "RIM cooperates with all governments with a consistent standard and the same degree of respect. Any claims that we provide, or have ever provided, something unique to the government of one country that we have not offered to the governments of all countries, are unfounded."

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"The BlackBerry enterprise solution was designed to preclude RIM, or any third party, from reading encrypted information under any circumstances since RIM does not store or have access to the encrypted data. RIM cannot accommodate any request for a copy of a customer’s encryption key, since at no time does RIM, or any wireless network operator or any third party, ever possess a copy of the key. This means that customers of the BlackBerry enterprise solution can maintain confidence in the integrity of the security architecture without fear of compromise," the statement concluded.

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