After confronting Chinese Network vendors, in a recent development, Indian Department of Telecom has decidedto ask Google, Skype and RIM to make the data available to Indian security agencies in a human readable format or face the ban.
Indian government is yet to call the mentioned companies for implementation of orders – without what it is saying these companies are helping terrorists in the country with secure and encrypted communication.
Google has said that it hasn’t received any such communication from DoT (Department of Telecom), whileSkype said that if banned, it will be “a big step backward”.
Reports say that Indian Government has also decided to amend the IT laws to make it mandatory for foreign companies that do not require a local license to provide all the data required by Indian law enforcement agencies.
Such a law would force companies such as Skype to give complete access to their networks or set up a local server in India to allow security agencies to track content.
Similar concerns were raised against Blackberry devices two years ago but the issue was put on the backburner. However, Government sources indicated that this time the concerns of the intelligence agencies will have to be addressed by all means.
Google, Skype and Blackberry may never share their data with third-party, based on their privacy policy, however, loosing a market like India may make them think otherwise. In any case, it is going to be a huge decision.
It merits mentioning here that Google has already started bowing before Chinese Government over a much hyped dispute.
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