Several years ago, the idea of using an Android phone or an iPhone as a government or corporate device seemed a little ludicrous. This is thanks to the fact that back in the day, BlackBerry devices were at the forefront of mobile security, and thanks to features like BES, it made the lives of IT admins a little easier.
That being said, if there is at least one government that is steadfastly holding onto the BlackBerry platform, it would be the German government. In fact if anything, the country’s Federal Ministry of the Interior has expressed their desire for more government officials to use BlackBerry handsets. As it stands, the Ministry has about 3,000 BlackBerry devices in use that are also bundled with Secusmart which makes them harder to be eavesdropped on.
We can only assume that the extra security comes in the wake the Snowden reports in which it was revealed that the US had been spying on Germany despite the fact that both countries are supposed to be in an alliance with one another.
Speaking to the Financial Post, Tobias Plate, an interior ministry spokesman was quoted as saying, “We have a federal authority for information security and they checked several smartphones, and the only brand that was approved by them is the BlackBerry smartphones… It’s the security of the device.”
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