BLACKBERRY SERVICES will be suspended in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Middle East’s business hub, from October because of security concerns as the company faces similar restrictions in India.
Research In Motion’s BlackBerry’s Messenger, e-mail and web browsing services will be halted from October 11th, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said in a statement on state-run Emirates News Agency. “In their current form, certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE,” it said.
Countries like India have struggled with BlackBerry’s data encryption technology as they seek to monitor wireless communications.
Saudi Arabia’s telecommunications regulator ordered phone providers in the largest Arab economy to suspend BlackBerry’s Messenger service, Reuters reported yesterday, citing unidentified industry sources.
Bahrain is imposing a ban on sharing local news on BlackBerry to avoid “confusion and chaos”, Gulf News reported on April 9th.
BlackBerry devices, introduced in the UAE in 2006, allow users to send messages that can’t be monitored, violating the country’s 2007 safety, emergency and national security rules, the regulator said last week. Although such communications should fall under the remit of that law, encryption allows them to avoid monitoring, it said yesterday.
“The issue has been under discussion for three years,” the regulator’s director Gen Mohammed el Ghanim said, saying the decision to stop BlackBerry services wasn’t linked to any specific breach of security.
“We want only the implementation of the UAE law, we are a sovereign country and our laws should be respected.”
UAE authorities arrested a BlackBerry user who sought to use the device to organise a protest against an increase in retail gasoline prices, Reporters Without Borders said last week.
BlackBerry services may be banned in India unless the Canadian company agrees to resolve security concerns, government officials have indicated. India told Research In Motion to set up a proxy server in the country to enable security agencies to monitor e-mail traffic, according to three government officials, who declined to be identified as the information is confidential.
The company also faced obstacles recently in Pakistan, where the national telecommunications regulator said it blocked internet browsers on BlackBerry handsets, citing concerns over blasphemy.
Communications are subject to monitoring in countries like the US, where the Patriot Act, passed in 2001 following the September 11th attacks, permits intercepting wire, oral and electronic communications when terrorism is suspected. – (Bloomberg)
