Ten days after the government had said that there was no question of banning Blackberry services in the country, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has warned service providers to either put the required security system in place within 15 days or stop the service.

The Blackberry service, offered by four service providers — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications and BPL — has been in a controversy after the government did not clear the application of Tata Teleservices Ltd to offer it.

Security concerns

The government cited security concerns and scrambled emails sent through Blackberry devices that cannot be onitored as the server of Blackberry’s owner, Research in Motion (RIM) is not located in India.

The latest directive, in the form of separate communication to the service providers, is understood to have told them to work out a fool-proof security system for the service by coordinating with Research in Motion  of Canada.

The directive comes agaisnt the backdrop of Communications Minister A Raja saying on March 14 that the issue would be discussed with the Telecom Commission as the country’s security was of paramount importance.

At the same time, Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura had said that while efforts were on to resolve the issue at the earliest, there was “no question of banning BlackBerry services”. There are over four lakh Blackberry service subscribers in the country, who include the who’s who in the political, corporate and media worlds.