BlackBerry makers agree to ban porn sites in Kuwait, open security codes for check in India
BlackBerry makers Research in Motion (RIM) has told Kuwaiti authorities that it agreed to block access to thousands of pornographic sites from the Arabian Gulf state, a local paper has said.
“The communication ministry has sent to RIM a list of 3,000 pornographic sites that should be blocked,” Al Jareeda daily reported on Tuesday. “RIM’s response has been positive and the company has requested a delay until the end of the year,” the newspaper said, citing “well-informed sources” that it did not name.
“The sources stressed that BlackBerry services would continue in Kuwait and would not be blocked. However, there are consultations with local providers to agree on a set of legal regulations that ensure both national security and people’s rights to use the services,” the daily said.
In India, a local paper on Tuesday reported that RIM agreed to allow Indian security agencies to monitor its BlackBerry services in an attempt to avert an outright government ban.
According to The Economic Times newspaper, RIM has “offered to share with security agencies its technical codes for corporate email services, open up access to all consumer emails within 15 days and also develop tools in six to eight months to allow monitoring of chats and telecom department documents.”
“In an internal note, the telecom department said RIM had agreed to come around, following serious pressure from the Indian government. RIM will provide further details on its proposals to the telecom ministry on Tuesday, following which the communications ministry will ask the home ministry and Intelligence Bureau to take a call on whether these solutions adequately address their concerns,” the paper said.
“RIM executives had presented these compromise solutions to India’s telecom department during meetings on July 27 and July 30. These meetings were held after the Indian government had given RIM a 15-day deadline, ending July, to ensure that its email and other data services comply with ‘formats that can be read by security and intelligence agencies,” The Economic Times said.
