Desperate to meet the December 31 deadline, Research In Motion has written to operators asking them to give server-related information about BlackBerry users to the Department of Telecom.
The server identity (technically called Server Routing Protocol) is linked to each BlackBerry device given by the operator at the time of activating the connection.
“As the lawful access solution provides no access to encrypted BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) traffic, this information will assist lawful enforcement agencies to approach their organisations directly,” RIM said in a communication to operators.
Traffic monitoring
The DoT has asked mobile companies to enable monitoring of BlackBerry traffic by December 31 or shut down services. While the Canada-based Research In Motion has given a solution to monitor most of its services, the operators are required to connect to this system.
In addition, operators need to collect the server identity of each subscriber to enable security agencies to directly approach the corporate entities that have set up a server for BlackBerry Enterprise Service.
The DoT has told operators to put the details of the server identity on customer acquisition forms (CAF) at the time of giving a connection.
“We request each carrier to put the Server Routing Protocol identity (SRPid) on the respective customer acquisition forms and send it over to the DoT under intimation to us. For future, we recommend you to amend your CAF to include a field on SRPid which should be filled up as soon as the BES is activated on your network and then the completed CAF sent to the DoT,” the communication from RIM stated.