No threat

New Delhi, July 2: The government today said it no longer perceived any security threat from the BlackBerry email facility and had no plan to shut down the service in the country.

“There is no threat from BlackBerry services,” said Siddhartha Behura, the secretary of the department of telecom, adding that mobile operators did not need the ministry’s approval to offer such services.

“There is no permission needed for starting value-added services. We have not given permission to anybody, we have not disallowed anybody,” said Behura.

DoT had earlier specified that a company has to inform the government before offering value-added services, like the BlackBerry email facility.

Today’s statement implies that the government is no longer interested in stopping BlackBerry services in India. However, security agencies will continue to discuss various options available to monitor data.

The change also means that Tata Teleservices, the application of which was once rejected by the government on the ground that the security set-up does not have a system in place to monitor email messages sent between BlackBerry phones, can now offer the facility.

In India, Blackberry services are provided by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications and BPL.

Industry sources said Tata Teleservices had already started the process of launching BlackBerry services.

The company had informed the department of telecom of its intention to launch the services two months ago and is now going ahead with the rollout.

“Preparations are on.… The launch could happen within a fortnight,” a source said.