Riyadh, Aug 4 (Arab News): Saudi Arabia announced Tuesday that it would block BlackBerry services from Aug. 6 (25/8/1431H) until its maker, Research In Motion (RIM), follows the country’s regulations.
The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), the Kingdom's telecom regulator, said it had given a three-month grace period for service providers to comply with its requirements.
The grace period began on 25/5/1431 and ends on 25/8/1431, the CITC said.
"The grace period is about to end and the company has not yet fulfilled the necessary organizational requirements," the regulator said.
"We had informed the three service providers — STC, Mobily and Zain — that they should work with the manufacturing company of BlackBerry to comply with the Kingdom's regulations," the statement said.
The CITC said it informed the three service providers on Aug. 2 that BlackBerry services would be suspended on Aug. 6. "We have already told service providers to inform subscribers before Aug. 6 that the BlackBerry services would be stopped until the company fulfills CITC's organizational requirements," it said.
The commission said it would not have taken this decision affecting subscribers if BlackBerry had complied with its regulations.
"In fact we encourage companies to provide advanced services that conform with license requirements," the commission pointed out.
Saudi Arabia's GCC neighbor the United Arab Emirates has already blocked BlackBerry services. There are an estimated 750,000 Blackberry Messenger users in Saudi Arabia and 500,000 in the United Arab Emirates.
RIM is facing demands for access to its encrypted data in some of its fastest-growing markets.
RIM's encrypted traffic is delivered through its network operating centers, based mostly in Canada, though corporate clients can choose to host their BlackBerry Enterprise Servers elsewhere. RIM says it cannot access data sent via its devices.
RIM does not give usage numbers by region, but research firm Gartner estimates that, of 10.55 million BlackBerry devices shipped in the last quarter, 1.4 percent went to the Middle East and Africa, 7.6 percent to Asia and 9.5 percent to Latin America. North America took more than half and more than a quarter went to Western Europe.
A newspaper in India reported Tuesday that RIM will allow security agencies in the country to monitor its BlackBerry services. It said RIM offered to share technical codes for corporate mail and to open up, within 15 days, access to consumer e-mails in the world's second-largest wireless market.
Security agencies in India suspect militants used BlackBerry services to plan a 2008 Mumbai attack in which 116 people died.
RIM's plans to enter China in 2006 were delayed by about two years, with analysts blaming Beijing's demands that RIM prove its handsets posed no security threat.
Kuwait does not plan to follow the example of its Gulf neighbors, but has asked RIM to block pornographic sites, a newspaper said Tuesday. RIM has given "initial approval" and sought until the end of the year to implement the block, the paper said.
RIM's system is considered so secure Britain's intelligence community permits BlackBerry use to send and receive information up to a level where release could limit the effectiveness of military operations or compromise law enforcement.
In Britain, public bodies which want to intercept or gain access to past communications data must obtain a warrant from the Home Office, or permission from a senior police, defense or customs authority. The main grounds for such permission are national security, crime prevention and detection and safeguarding the economy.