In a move that sounds more like it should be Chinese policy, India is threatening to pull the plug on RIM’s BlackBerry servers in the country unless they hand over the decryption algorithms used to secure emails handled by the system.  A meeting is scheduled for Friday 14th, to be attended by RIM executives, reps from Indian carriers offering the BlackBerry service, and officials from the Indian Department of Telecommunications, to discuss the issue; if unsettled, the government has threatened that all 400,000 BlackBerry users in the country will lose their service at the end of March.

“The security agencies are saying that we should have access to data that are being encrypted by services like BlackBerry on mobile phones and then decrypted when the phone reaches its nominated destination” Internal source

“This is, perhaps, the first time that the government is admitting to intercepting electronic communication. Blanket power to intercept emails will probably end up diluting the legal validity of encrypted communication in an age when privacy is of utmost importance to corporate and individuals. The Indian government could be firm, asking RIM (or any other player) to take action on a specific case that arouses suspicion. It may not be wise and practical to ban the services altogether” Na Vijayashankar, cyberlaw expert

Critics of the move are warning that forcing this sort of ubiquitous transparency will dissuade online banking and e-commerce, and in turn prompt businesses to choose other countries to invest in.  India’s ISPs have already been asked to reduce the level of encryption from the standard 128-bit to just 40-bit.

[via TBG]