Hi friends we all know that BlackBerry Services, but Saudi Arabia’s telecommunication regulator, that it has ordered a suspension of BlackBerry services starting on Friday as the manufacturer of the devices has failed to meet its demands.
The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) said that “the way BlackBerry services are provided currently does not meet the regulatory criteria of the commission and the licencing conditions,” in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.
It said that it has asked the kingdom’s three providers to suspend BlackBerry services starting on Friday after it had given them a grace period to get the manufacturer of the devices, Research In Motion (RIM), to “meet the regulatory demands.”
It said that it had warned those companies over a year ago about the need to address the issue.
The services will be banned until its demands are met, the commission added, but without elaborating on its conditions.
The announcement confirmed earlier reports that the conservative kingdom was going to follow the United Arab Emirates in suspending key BlackBerry communication services which currently cannot not be monitored by security services.
The UAE on Sunday said it will cut the key BlackBerry services of messenger, email and web browsing on October 11 over security concerns and until they are brought in line with the country’s regulations.
Both countries censor the Internet and block websites that have nudity and pornography as well as unwanted political sites.
BlackBerry has more than 700,000 subscribers in Saudi Arabia and 500,000 in the UAE, a country that has established itself as a major business hub mainly in the bustling emirate of Dubai.
The decision also caused tension between the United States and its staunch Gulf ally, the UAE, over criticism from the US State Department.
Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to Washington, issued a sharp e-mail response to the news media.
He said the “UAE is asking for exactly the same regulatory compliance — and with the same principles of judicial and regulatory oversight — that BlackBerry grants the US and other governments and nothing more.”
But RIM denied Tuesday giving government access to its data after it had vowed earlier in the day not to comprise the security of its clients.
Tensions between RIM and states unhappy about not having access to the encrypted data of the BlackBerry have been building up.
In July 2009, RIM charged that an update issued by UAE’s largest telecoms provider, Etisalat, was actually spyware, and that it enabled unauthorised access to information stored on users’ smartphones.
In India, the handset sparked a similar controversy after the Indian government warned it would close down RIM’s operations in the world’s fastest growing mobile market after China if it could not monitor emails and text messages because of security concerns.
RIM gave an assurance that it would soon address concerns on the “issue of monitoring the BlackBerry,” an Indian official said last week.
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