Dubai: Saudi Arabia delayed suspending Research In Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry instant messaging until Monday as they worked to resolve the country’s concerns over the service, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported on Sunday.
The Saudi government had earlier said they would ban the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service in the kingdom from Friday, August 6. But it extended the deadline to test proposed solutions as wireless operators in Saudi Arabia attempt to comply with regulatory requirements, the SPA said, citing a statement from the country’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC).
Saudi authorities have said they want to monitor BlackBerry communications in the country to prevent terrorism and other illegal activities. “The sooner they reach agreements and publicise them, the better,” said Pierre Ferragu, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein in London. He has an “underperform” rating on RIM. If the situation is not resolved “it could end up pushing users to go for an alternative brand in order to avoid problems if the service were actually shut off.”
On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that Saudi Arabia and RIM had reached a deal on accessing user data that will avert the ban on BBM. Bandar Al Mohammad, an official at the CITC, said that RIM has expressed its "intention ... to place a server inside Saudi Arabia."
The agreement would allow the government to monitor messages and allay official fears the service could be used for criminal purposes, the official was quoted by the news agency as saying. Al Mohammad said tests were now under way to determine how to install a BlackBerry server in the country. The reported agreement raised questions about how it would affect Saudi access to messages sent by BlackBerry but Al Mohammad would not provide more details.
The deal could have wide-ranging implications for several other countries, including India and the UAE, which have expressed similar concerns over how RIM handles data.
No immediate comments by the two UAE telecom providers, etisalat and du, were available. RIM representatives also did not immediately return messages seeking confirmation.
"The BlackBerry has become indispensable for the business community in Saudi Arabia and the region," said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Banque Saudi Fransi in Riyadh. Blocking the services would be "a disruption to the business flow and productivity", he said.
The UAE has announced it will ban BlackBerry e-mail, messaging and web browsing from October, but it added it was open to discussions aimed at achieving a solution to the issue.
Indonesia and India are also demanding greater control over the data. Turkey's telecommunications regulator on Sunday said there are "serious" security weaknesses related to BlackBerry services in the country, adding that it has set up a committee to look into the matter.
RIM has a combined 1.2- million-strong user base in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The UAE has 500,000 BlackBerry users and plans a more sweeping ban from October 11 targeting not only messenger but also email and web browsing on the device.
Sources have told Reuters that the UAE government has also suggested RIM install a server handling BlackBerry traffic in the country. The UAE could access the data it requires either through a local server or an encryption master key used in BlackBerry technology, said Shardul Shrimani, Middle East and North Africa analyst at IHS Global Insight.
— With inputs from AP, Bloomberg & Reuters
