Indonesian government will not ban BlackBerry services

RIM's troubles have overshadowed the launch of the BlackBerry Torch

The Indonesian government has confirmed that it has no intention of banning the use of BlackBerry devices in the country.

Indonesian communications ministry spokesman Gatot Dewa Broto said in a statement that there is "absolutely no plan to implement a similar ban pursued by the United Arab Emirates".

Broto added that Indonesia's call for RIM to install a datacentre in the country in which BlackBerry data would be stored was "only a plea" and that there is "no legal sanction" around the requirements.

The conciliatory tone will come as a relief to RIM which has spent a difficult week fending off accusations that it gives preferential treatment to certain governments by providing access to data when asked.

"The BlackBerry enterprise solution was designed to preclude RIM, or any third party, from reading encrypted information under any circumstances," the company said in a statement earlier in the 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, authorities in Saudi Arabia are planning to block certain messaging services on the devices from this weekend over concerns that they cannot monitor messages sent between the devices. The United Arab Emirates has proposed a similar ban.

Mohammed Al Ghanem, director general of the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, said that the BlackBerry services will be suspended from 11 October "until an acceptable solution can be developed and applied".

The upheaval has overshadowed RIM's launch of the BlackBerry Torch earlier this week.