It was reported recently that the Canadian Police had obtained the master encryption key for BlackBerry devices back in 2010. The key would have allowed law enforcement to decrypt messages sent using BlackBerry handsets at a time when over one-third of all smartphone users in North America were using a BlackBerry. The company has finally responded to these reports through a blog post by the CEO John Chen himself.
Chen starts off by saying that BlackBerry’s guiding principle has been to do “what is right for the citizenry, within legal and ethical boundaries.”
He points out that the company has been clear in its stance that tech companies should comply with reasonable lawful access requests “as good corporate citizens.” Chen says that this is an old case that has resurfaced in the news and that it “speculated on and challenged BlackBerry’s corporate and ethical principles.”
The case ended up in a major criminal organization being dismantled, he writes, while reiterating that the company stood by its lawful access principles and saying that at no point was BlackBerry’s BES server involved. “Our BES continues to be impenetrable,” Chen writes.
Chen ends the post by saying that BlackBerry maintains a balance between doing what’s right, like helping apprehend criminals, and preventing government abuse of invading citizens’ privacy.
Filed in . Read more about BlackBerry. Source: blogs.blackberry