More than one million BlackBerry users in the UAE and Saudi Arabia could be affected by new government-enforced bans being placed on several key features of the Blackberry device due to security reasons. Several other countries have expressed concerns as well.
According to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) in the UAE, services like BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry email, and Blackberry web browsing will be banned as of October 11, 2010. The suspension will be in place, the TRA said, until the applications are in full compliance with UAE regulations.
The concern stems from the fact that the data sent via services like Messenger is encrypted and sent to offshore servers, meaning that it cannot be tracked at a local level.
Meanwhile, BlackBerry Messenger has been completely suspended for the month in Saudi Arabia – local telecom companies were instructed to shut down all services. In April of this year, Bahrain also filed a warning against using BlackBerry Messenger to distribute local news, and last week, India was expressing security issues as well.
The TRA in the UAE stated: “Today’s decision is based on the fact that, in their current form, certain Blackberry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE.”
The country has been involved in discussions with regulators since as far back as 2007.
“The TRA notes that Blackberry appears to be compliant in similar regulatory environments of other countries, which makes non-compliance in the UAE both disappointing and of great concern,” said TRA Director General Mohamed Al Ghanim in an official press release.
