A man walks past a sign advertising the BlackBerry mobile phone at a shopping mall in Dubai on August 01, 2010, as the Gulf business hub stated it will suspend key BlackBerry services from October because they are incompatible with local laws and raise security concerns.AFP / Getty Images
Research In Motion appears unwilling to weaken its BlackBerry security features to appease the government of the United Arab Emirates, even as a dispute between local authorities and the Waterloo, Ont.. smart-phone maker quickly turns into a geopolitical struggle over who controls wireless communication.
On Monday, the U.S. State Department became the latest government arm to weigh in on the UAE's threat to shut down several BlackBerry services in October, should the company not take measures to allow local authorities to monitor communication on the device.
"We're disappointed with [the UAE's announcement]" a State Department spokeswoman told The Globe and Mail. "It's not about the Canadian company, it's about what we think is an important element of human rights … and the free flow of information."
Conscious that the Internet and wireless communications tools have become the prime weapons for grassroots political action in both friendly and hostile regimes, the U.S. deliberately tied the UAE-RIM issue to the use of Twitter by dissidents in Iran, and China's ongoing feud with Google over Internet censorship. In both previous cases, Washington has strongly supported the firms behind the technology in question.
Washington's foray into the dispute provoked a sharp response from the UAE's ambassador to the U.S., who said in a statement that his government "is asking for exactly the same regulatory compliance - and with the same principles of judicial and regulatory oversight - that BlackBerry grants the U.S. and other governments and nothing more."
In Ottawa, International Trade is handling the case, and is in contact with RIM as well as the governments of both the UAE and Saudi Arabia - which has also threatened to shut down BlackBerry service - to try to find a solution. "The government of Canada will continue to stand up for Canadian business, both at home and abroad," said International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan.
The watchdog group Reporters Without Borders blasted the UAE's decision, describing it as "the continuation of the government's attempts to control information and new technology and, in particular, to get control of data transferred by BlackBerry technology."
The group said some BlackBerry users have previously been arrested in the country - including Badr al-Dhohori, who the group said has been held since July 15 for trying to organize a protest against local gas prices.
Although it did not specify the UAE situation directly, RIM issued a statement Monday assuring its customers "that it is committed to continue delivering highly secure and innovative products that satisfy the needs of both customers and governments."
RIM's security measures involve encrypting user messages and routing them through company servers in such a way that they cannot be monitored by any outside parties, including RIM. While the company's statement may leave room for negotiations with the UAE government, RIM said "it will not compromise the integrity and security of the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution," and added that governments have other ways of maintaining national security "without compromising commercial security requirements."
See how Blackberry's messenger encrypts data traffic
The statement came in response to a decree from the UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, which told the country's two main telecom carriers over the weekend that they will have to shut down certain BlackBerry features as of Oct. 11. Those features include e-mail, BlackBerry Web browsing and instant messaging.
"BlackBerry data is immediately exported offshore, where it is managed by a foreign, commercial organization. BlackBerry data services are currently the only data services operating in the UAE where this is the case," the TRA said.
"Today's decision is based on the fact that, in their current form, certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE."
The timing is particularly bad for RIM because the company is holding a media event in New York on Tuesday, when it is widely expected to showcase its newest BlackBerry smart phone and operating system; without the UAE government's announcement, the public focus would have been squarely on the new products.
The UAE government's ruling - which affects about 500,000 users within the country - may also spur other nations in the region to act. Kuwait and Bahrain have reportedly expressed similar concerns. Last week, the Indian government also criticized RIM's security features. At the heart of all the complaints is the governments' inability to monitor BlackBerry traffic.
"The type of steps taken by the UAE are going to become more common in the future as governments struggle to gain control of cyberspace for national security reasons," said Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs.
"Just like Google has had to grapple with the pressures of China and other countries who censor search engines, RIM will find itself the centre of pressures from governments eager to tap encrypted mobile data streams."
Foreign Policy 2.0
The rise of the global Internet communication company - from Google to Facebook - has changed nearly everything about the way consumers, businesses and governments work. A new brand of foreign policy has emerged, where the multinational technology company acts almost as an independent nation-state, negotiating directly with foreign governments and fundamentally affecting geopolitical events.
The company: Google
The country: China
The issue: Beijing routinely demands that search engines such as Google censor their search results within the country, essentially whitewashing results for terms such as "Tiananmen Square" that the government finds offensive.
The impact: Google's public criticism of Beijing made headlines around the world. The U.S. State Department backed the company, creating tension between Beijing and Washington. And negotiations between Google and China represent perhaps a deeper conversation about human rights and Internet freedom than almost any country or group has managed to have with Beijing.
The company: Twitter
The country: Iran
The issue: After the 2009 Iranian presidential elections, millions of people in Iran and around the globe protested the results. The protests quickly earned the nickname "the Twitter revolution" because the microblogging site proved invaluable to dissidents attempting to relay information out of Iran.
The impact: Washington took an indirect role, urging Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance that would have shut the site down at the height of the demonstrations. The flow of information through Twitter out of Iran helped galvanize global support, and was ultimately the best source of raw news about events on the ground.
The company: Facebook
The country: Pakistan
The issue: Earlier this year, a Facebook contest urging users to post cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad prompted a Pakistani court to shut down access to the site. Eventually, Facebook itself shut down the contest, and the Pakistani court lifted the ban.
The impact: Although the ban was short-lived, the significance went beyond traditional censorship. Because of the presence of religious extremism within Pakistan, the government is very sensitive to any development that may be perceived as offensive by the country's conservative clerics, lest it worsen what is already a tense political climate.