Research In Motion (RIM), the company behind BlackBerry, has responded to the Department of Communications' (DOC's) call for the decryption of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), saying it will continue to work cooperatively with the local authorities.
Deputy communications minister Obed Bapela said yesterday that following the implementation of the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (RICA), criminals have turned to BlackBerry due to its BBM service.
“The devil minds have begun to abuse this communication for planning their crimes. So the time has come to visit BBM.”
RIM says: “Like other companies in the technology and telecommunications industry in South Africa, RIM complies with privacy laws as well as RICA. We will continue to work cooperatively with all the appropriate authorities in South Africa.”
Lawyer and social media specialist, Paul Jacobson, says the proposed decryption of BBM by the DOC is the same sort of issue as a proposed clampdown on social media mooted recently in the UK following the riots.
“The DOC says there are high levels of criminal use of the service but this is conjecture unless the DOC has actually cracked BlackBerry's encryption,” says Jacobson. “The DOC seems to be riding the wave of fear and hype after the London riots in an effort to gain access to users' data.
“On the one hand, the RICA legislation gives the state the ability to intercept communications but there are procedures to be followed to get authority for this.
“The DOC faces a practical challenge here if it can't get through BlackBerry encryption so the access it seeks may be necessary to give effect to the Act. On the other hand, if this is a fishing expedition, the DOC may face some serious privacy concerns.”
Worrying times
According to Bapela, care will be taken to ensure user privacy, and decryption of BBM would only be demanded in cases where police investigations indicate BBM was used for criminal activity. These records will only be accessed via court orders.
“It will just be these isolated cases and the privacy of other users is guaranteed. So it's not a blanket opening of spying on people.”
While the department is yet to start negotiations with RIM, Bapela says it will begin this as soon as the cyber security policy goes to Cabinet.
“In SA, while the threat of terrorism is low, crime is a major issue,” said Bapela. “We don't want to get into a situation where we would have to block BBM.”
Global standard
According to RIM, the company has four core principles in its approach to providing carriers the capabilities to address lawful access requirements in their respective countries.
These capabilities are limited to the context of lawful access and national security requirements, as governed by the country's judicial oversight and rules of law.
RIM also says: “The carriers' capabilities must be technology- and vendor-neutral, allowing no greater access to BlackBerry consumer services than the carriers and regulators already impose on RIM's competitors and other similar communications technology companies.”
The third principle also states that contrary to any rumours, RIM cannot make changes to the security architecture for BlackBerry Enterprise Server customers.
“The security architecture is the same around the world and RIM truly has no ability to provide its customers' encryption keys.
“Also driving RIM's position is the fact that strong encryption is a fundamental commercial requirement for any country to attract and maintain international business anyway, and similarly strong encryption is currently used pervasively in traditional VPNs on both wired and wireless networks in order to protect corporate and government communications.”
RIM adds that it maintains a global standard for lawful access requirements, and will not make special deals for specific countries.
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