RIM dismisses Indian shutdown threat

Research In Motion (RIM) has said it is confident that the measures put in place to provide the Indian authorities with access to some data services are acceptable, despite comments made by a junior telecoms minister earlier this week.

The minister, Sachin Pilot, told parliament on Wednesday that security agencies in the country were dissatisfied with the level of access RIM is offering to provide to its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service, renewing the prospect of a ban on all services, according to Reuters.

However, RIM said in a statement that it believed his comments were "inadvertently prepared using outdated information", and outlined its belief the access it was providing was acceptable to the authorities and more thorough than its rivals.

"RIM is confident that the solution it delivered for consumer services in January meets the needs of India's security agencies," it said.

"It has also been publicly revealed that RIM is well ahead of competitors such as Nokia and others in delivering such consumer-service solutions in India."

RIM added that, with regards to enterprise communication systems, the Indian government was aware that many others firms offered similar security systems and that it was an "industry-wide issue".

"The Government has recognised that there are in fact at least 15 secure VPN (virtual private network) solutions from different technology vendors being used by both domestic and international organisations in India," it said.

India has said in the past that it would look at other technology services that it feared could be used by terrorists in light of the terror attacks that occurred in 2008 in Mumbai.

RIM itself will no doubt be hoping that issues around its services do not dominate 2011 in the same manner as they did last year, particularly as it seeks to gain traction in the tablet market with its highly anticipated PlayBook tablet.