Blackberry Departs from Pakistan Over Backdoor Security Demands

Blackberry is announcing about its departure from Pakistan as soon as possible if the country's Telecommunications Authority keeps on insisting that Backdoor access be granted to the Company's messaging service. The government in the said country wants access to all encrypted traffic running via Blackberry's Enterprice service from BES emails and BES BBM messaging systems. The local suppliers were ordered to shut off the service from the end of November because of some security reasons, earlier in July. Albeit, the orders were pushed further by the end of the year.

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The company explained, "remaining in Pakistan would have meant forfeiting our commitment to protect our users' privacy. That is a compromise we are not willing to make." Blackberry is strictly making this move as the government desires that the Enterprise must start giving access to the user information through a Backdoor service.

From the official Blog of Blackberry, they suggested that because they have denied access to the government, shutdown orders have been given to them. Marty Beard, CEO Blackberry, conveyed, "In July, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority notified the country’s mobile phone operators that BlackBerry’s BES servers would no longer be allowed to operate in the country starting in December 'for security reasons.'"

Furthermore, he added, "The truth is that the Pakistani government wanted the ability to monitor all BlackBerry Enterprise Service traffic in the country, including every BES e-mail and BES BBM message. But BlackBerry will not comply with that sort of directive. As we have said many times, we do not support 'back doors' granting open access to our customers’ information and have never done this anywhere in the world."