The Blackberry Ban in the UAE

The United Arab Emirate(UAE), Sunday took the unusual step of announcing that from October it will suspend the use of Blackberry services. It claims the move is due to security fears, but the ban highlights the tension between digital security and privacy. Walk down the street of any major international business centre and the signs of Blackberry’s popularity are everywhere.
Hurried business executives furiously type on its tiny keyboard while others pass by with the device attached to their belt, and its distinctive “bzzz bzzzzz” vibrating sound seem to permanently hover in the air.
Few of these users rely on Blackberry for entertainment or think it makes a fashion statement, such as Apple’s hugely popular iPhone.
 Instead, Blackberry users regard is as a vital utility device elegantly designed to send and receive secure email and other text messages.
The combination of its simplicity (it is one of the few gadgets with a real keyboard after all) and the security that comes with encrypted communications underlie the foundation of Blackberry’s popularity. Now it appears, that success may also become the company’s biggest liability.

Open vs closed networks

 The United Arab Emirates announced on Sunday that, as of October, use of the Blackberry’s data services in the country will no longer be permitted. Its half a million domestic customers in the UAE will have to find other devices to send and receive messages, while visitors to the Emirates will also be blocked from accessing their messaging services. 

The central issue for the Emirates, and a growing list of other countries, rests in the high level of security encryption that protects the data flowing across Blackberry’s network. 

Unlike other email providers like Yahoo! Mail or Microsoft’s Hotmail, Blackberry does not use the open internet to transmit email or text messages from one point to another. Instead, when a Blackberry user sends a message, the data travels over a closed global network operated by the device’s manufacturer, Research in Motion (RIM).

While that closed network is reassuring for users who want their privacy protected, it is also a major source of frustration for governments, such as the UAE, who cannot monitor RIM’s network as they can for other devices.

The national security debate

UAE officials contend that the decision to restrict the use of the Blackberry is motivated by the need to protect national security. If the Emirates security services, according to their argument, are unable to monitor encrypted emails and messages sent by terrorists using Blackberries, then that poses a genuine threat to the UAE’s national security.  One example that has been commonly used to highlight this issue was the January 2010 assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai allegedly by Israeli agents.
The fact that the killing occurred in Dubai and without detection by the UAE's security services came as a real shock for the government in Abu Dhabi. In fact, the incident so infuriated UAE officials that it is widely credited with prompting the current drive for increased electronic surveillance and security.   

Although RIM has not offered a detailed response to the UAE decision, there are indications that a compromise may be reached. In India, where the government also had serious security concerns about its inability to monitor Blackberry data, the company will reportedly grant officials access to its servers for the first time anywhere in the world, according to the Indian newspaper The Economic Times.  A similar arrangement may be considered in the UAE and other countries that are contemplating tighter restrictions on the use of the Blackberry’s encrypted messaging service (see box).

Opposition

Not all governments, though, support India and the UAE’s move to tighten information monitoring policies. 

"The UAE has reasons to be concerned about how information can be used by those who wish to attack the UAE or others. But restricting technologies in the 21st century, we think, is a move in the wrong direction," said United States Department of State spokesman PJ Crowley.  

Additionally, international media rights organisations, such as Reporters Without Borders, deplored the UAE’s Blackberry ban asserting that it will limit freedom of expression in the Emirates. 

There are also growing concerns that the UAE ban on Blackberry could negatively impact the country’s tourism industry, especially among the 100,000 visitors who pass through Dubai’s airport each day.

Who’s next?

While many governments are focusing their attention on Blackberry’s encrypted messaging service, it is by no means the only platform that offers secure online communication. Google’s Gmail service now encrypts emails that pass through its servers as well.
Although the encryption used on Gmail is not as extensive as that employed by Blackberry, it does highlight the consumer demand that tech companies are responding to for enhanced internet privacy controls. So far there is no indication that the Emirates has any plans to follow China’s lead in directly confronting Google, but it may be that Blackberry is the UAE’s opening shot in this new digital showdown.


CULLED FROM FRANCE24