RIM does BlackBerry deal with Saudi Arabia

BlackBerry users consider the devices the most secure on the market

Research in Motion has reached an agreement with the Saudi government to give the authorities greater control over data services, and avert the ban on its Messenger service expected to come into force yesterday.

The Press Association reports that the Canadian smartphone maker has agreed to install a server in the kingdom, allowing the Saudi government to monitor BlackBerry data.

However, there are as yet no details as to the granularity of these monitoring capabilities.

RIM has stated that it cannot and does not give any government the ability to decrypt the data streams of BlackBerry traffic, and that any serious capitulation on this front would seriously undermine its security credentials in the market.

"The BlackBerry enterprise solution was designed to preclude RIM, or any third party, from reading encrypted information under any circumstances, since RIM does not store or have access to the encrypted data," the company said in a statement this week.

"RIM cannot accommodate any request for a copy of a customer's encryption key since at no time does RIM, or any wireless network operator or any third party, ever possess a copy of the key."

However, also this week a Reuters report seemed to suggest otherwise, asserting that US law enforcers can tap into BlackBerry emails and other conversations as long as they have court orders.

"The ability to tap communications is a part of surveillance and intelligence and law enforcement all over the world," said Mark Rasch, former head of the computer crimes unit at the US Department of Justice.

It remains to be seen whether the reported deal with the Saudis will pave the way for a similar agreement between RIM and the United Arab Emirates, which has also stated its intention to ban key BlackBerrry services.