Blackberry Interception: To Be Delayed

By Pravin Prashant

In India things don't happen on time and in telecom security it is even worst thanks to half hearted approach by Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The focus is not to get the best solution for the given problem but to install a system without worrying whether it will solve the problem. Lot of initiatives are taken by the government but it does not come to a logical conclusion thanks to high handedness of DoT.

For e.g. in the case of Location Based Services (LBS), the Ministry of Communications and IT, government of India had come out with a notification on May 31,2011 which announced that mobile operators shall provide location details with accuracy level of 50 to 500 m in the license service area within one year from the date of announcement. On May 31, 2012 not a single operator deployed LBS despite operators doing lot of pilot deployment in respective circles. The question is why did this project took a back seat if security was high in the priority list and the government had issued a notification? It is almost seven months since the deadline expired but there has been no update from DoT about the new implementation dates and it seems this issue has taken a back seat.

Recently, DoT directed service providers to ensure infrastructure for legal interception of Blackberry services are in place by 31st December, 2012. This happened after the government put lot of pressure on RIM to have its server stationed in India to address lawful access requirements for consumer messaging services, which include BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) email but despite the pressure, it seems Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Aircel, TTSL and Idea Cellular would not be in a position to install the system on the due date thanks to DoT.

First, DoT has only approved Verint as the exclusive vendor for deploying lawful interception solution for Blackberry services in the country when there are solutions from Adaptive Mobile and Aqsacom in the market. Second, Verint has not deployed lawful interception solution for Blackberry services anywhere in the world according to industry sources but despite that Verint was given a go ahead in India. Not only this, even the demo pilot deployed by Vodafone had lot of glitches in terms of correlation of the call content and the qualitative information was not upto the mark for BB6 and BB7 operating system. Third, when Verint was not able to support the present version how will it support RIM's new OS i.e. BB10 which is planned to be launched Han the first quarter of 2013.

 

A questionnaire was mailed to Verint India office but there was no response from Ashutosh Kar, sales director, Verint Systems India.

Commenting on lawful interception solution RIM spokesperson said “Whilst we are not at liberty to share the lawful monitoring solution deployed by other countries, in India we have been working closely with the LEA's and carriers in meeting their lawful access requirements, in line with RIM's stated lawful access principles.'

Even DoT was not willing to comment on RIM lawful interception story despite repeated request by Voice&Data.

According to industry experts, only Adaptive Mobile and Aqsacom has deployed full fledged lawful interception solution for Blackberry services worldwide. Both companies have deployed lawful interception solution in Middle East.

Speaking on Blackberry lawful interception solution Sunil Singh, vice president - Business Development, Aqsacom India said 'We are compatible with all OS versions of RIM currently available and will cater to other versions as and when released'.

All this leads to multiple questions which DoT needs to answer. First, why did DoT opted for exclusivity in the case of Blackberry lawful interception services? Second, why didn't DoT deployed solutions which were tested in the worldwide market so that India can get best of breed solution so that it can solve the problem of security agencies? Third, will the operator again pay for the new version whenever it is being launched by Verint? Fourth, will Blackberry services get further extension so that there is no discontinuity of Blackberry services in the country?

pravinp@cybermedia.co.in