THE MAKER of the BlackBerry, Research in Motion, said last night it would co-operate with a police investigation into claims that its popular BlackBerry Messenger service played a key role in organising the London riots.
Scotland Yard vowed to track down and arrest protesters who posted “really inflammatory, inaccurate” messages on the service, and the social networking websites Twitter and Facebook.
Patrick Spence, the managing director for regional marketing at Research In Motion (RIM), confirmed that the BlackBerry manufacturer had contacted police to assist with the investigation.
However, the statement prompted fears among some BlackBerry users that their private messages could be handed over.
“We feel for those impacted by the riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can,” Mr Spence said. He added that RIM complies with UK legislation on the interception of communication and co-operates fully with the Home Office. RIM refused to comment further or answer a series of questions on the statement.
BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) appears to be the favoured method of planning the unrest that has swept across north London since Saturday evening. Unlike text messaging or Twitter, BBM is a free, private social network where almost all messages are encrypted when they leave the sender’s phone – meaning that many messages are untraceable by the authorities.
RIM can be legally ordered to hand over details to police of users suspected of unlawful activity. However, the Canadian company would be likely to resist those demands and the content of users’ inflammatory messages would be encrypted. The manufacturer has previously insisted that even it cannot unscramble users’ messages when sent on the devices.
Although Twitter and Facebook have played a key role in past unrest in the capital, the Tottenham riots are thought to have been heavily orchestrated using BlackBerry Messenger.
The “broadcasts”, which are sent instantly from one to many BBM users, have been reposted and amplified on Twitter and Facebook. Evidence of rioters planning where to hit next spread quickly as the police struggled to keep up.