BlackBerry says bye bye to Pakistan after fight with govt

BlackBerry has said it would pull out of Pakistan after the government there made demands that have left it "no choice but to exit the country entirely". The problem, according to BlackBerry is that Pakistan wants "unfettered" access to the information of all those who use BlackBerry Enterprise Services (BES).

"Remaining in Pakistan would have meant forfeiting our commitment to protect our users' privacy. That is a compromise we are not willing to make," Marty Beard, BlackBerry's chief operating officer, wrote in a blog post on Monday.

"The truth is that the Pakistani government wanted the ability to monitor all BlackBerry Enterprise Service traffic in the country, including every BES e-mail and BES BBM message. But BlackBerry will not comply with that sort of directive. As we have said many times, we do not support backdoors granting open access to our customers' information and have never done this anywhere in the world," explained Marty.

While BlackBerry describes Pakistan as its important market, the possibility is that the company's exist from the country may not affect the smartphone market much. The company is losing market share -- and importance -- at least in the consumer market for quite some time as people have shifted to Android devices and iPhones.

Though, given the focus of BlackBerry on security and privacy, organisations and government bodies still use BlackBerry phones. Because of the company's this focus on the security and privacy, it has often run into trouble with governments across the world, including in India.

A few years ago, the Indian government and BlackBerry had some disagreement on how to monitor and intercept calls and messages made using BlackBerry devices. In 2013, the issue resolved, probably after BlackBerry agreed to some of the demands made by the Indian government.

However, BES wasn't reportedly part of it. In a statement issued at that time, BlackBerry had said, "BlackBerry has delivered a solution that enables India's wireless carriers to address their lawful access requirements for our consumer messaging services, which include BlackBerry Messenger and BlackBerry Internet Service email... We also wish to underscore, once again, that this enablement of lawful access does not extend to BlackBerry Enterprise Server."

Source : Indiatoday