International Law

Regulating privacy vs Blackberry

By Saptak Sanyal

The recent coverage on media regarding the controversies related to Blackberry has raised certain serious questions on the State?s absolute power to monitor the flow of information and to regulate it in the name of National Security. This is not the first instance where state has been eager in intercepting messages, Section 5 of the ITA has been used on various occasions where there had been no concerns related to National Security.

Concerns related to Blackberry    

BlackBerry’s server is based in Canada where the encryption level is very high and extremely difficult to crack. Any message going through the Canadian server is encrypted and, therefore, cannot be accessed by intelligence agencies of UAE, Saudi Arabia and India.

Concerned officials in this states have argued that the continuation of BlackBerry services posed danger to the country. They pointed out that security agencies were finding it difficult to intercept or decipher messages sent through these phones, which use codes with high encryption.

How does it works

“The BlackBerry security model is very different from other phones,” said Kevin Mahaffey of Lookout mobile security firm. “It is end-to-end and the encryption is so strong nobody knows how to monitor it.”

Makers of BlackBerry, Canada based Research in Motion (RIM) uses the level of encryptions for BlackBerry email messages and routes them in a way that keeps the data off limits from even telecom firms that carry the transmissions. According to RIM they “transmit information wirelessly while also providing them with the necessary confidence that no one, including RIM, could access their data,”

RIM uses a special layer of coding to shield email as it is routed to the company’s servers and then on to intended recipients. BlackBerry also uses encrypted validation to identify handsets connecting to the network.

In normal smart phones transmits data through telecom Service providers which are generally owned by the state or the state has the authority or jurisdiction to intercept messages from there where in case of Blackberry it cannot.

Concerns are justified or not

The UAE has said that BlackBerry services including messenger, web browsing and email will be suspended because they “allow individuals to commit violations” that the country cannot monitor.

We are also aware that the intercepting messages in the State of J & K is a necessary security arrangement to thwart any security threat. We also agree that there has certain case of misuse by the State. To address the concerns of the citizens and to protect their privacy the state should enact a legislation which balances the requirement for national security and should not infringe upon the individual?s right to privacy. The procedures for intercepting messages needs to be more transparent than the existing form.  

Full post as published by India Law & Tech on August 05, 2010 (boomark / email).