BlackBerry 'optimistic' it can avert India ban

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) said Friday it was "optimistic" it could avert a threatened shutdown by India of the core features of the popular smartphone over security worries.

A delegation from the Canadian firm met India's Home Secretary GK Pillai to discuss the government's warning it would ban BlackBerry's corporate email and messaging unless it gave security agencies access to the encrypted services.

"I am optimistic," Robert Crowe, vice-president of Research in Motion, told reporters following the half-hour talks in New Delhi aimed at helping resolve the security issues before India's end-of-the month deadline.

BlackBerry has proposed "technical solutions" to meet India's security concerns but they must be evaluated to see whether they would be satisfactory, a government official said later, without elaborating.

India, which has the fastest growing number of cellular subscribers, is a coveted market for RIM, which already has 1.1 million BlackBerry customers in the country.

The developments came as India's showdown with BlackBerry threatened to widen and embroil Google's GMail email service and the Internet telephony firm Skype, with the country seeking access to any encrypted data that might be used by militant groups to evade monitoring by Indian security agencies.

"These are all issues that are being deliberated from a security point of view," a government official told AFP, and would be addressed in turn.

The government, fearing that extremists could use Blackberry's heavily encrypted messaging system to coordinate attacks, has given RIM until August 31 to meet its demand for security access.