Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) is running a surveillance facility in Mumbai to assist the Indian government in wiretapping BlackBerry consumer communications, the Wall Street Journal reported. After the Indian government threatened last year to close down BlackBerry services because of its inability to listen in on email and instant messages, RIM insisted that it did not have a back door to enable decryption, but it began working with the government on other solutions. 

RIM cooperates with surveillance requests at the Mumbai facility only if the government demonstrates that it is legally justified in accessing communications, according to the Wall Street Journal. Although RIM processes the government's requests there, the effort reportedly is not enough to fully satisfy the Indian government, which wants to be able to spy on messages sent over BlackBerry Enterprise Server as well. What's more, it wants to station Indian officials at RIM's Canadian headquarters to make it easier to deliver the wiretap requests.

As Geoff Duncan at Digital Trends points out, RIM has always maintained that there's no secret way for anyone to get access to encrypted communications sent over the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. However, there is speculation now that some governments require companies to give them their encryption keys if they want to use BlackBerry Enterprise services.

RIM tries to keep the details of its arrangements with government surveillance officials close to the vest. In the case of India, the company has said only that it has "delivered a solution," declining to confirm the news of the surveillance facility, Duncan writes.

For more, see:
- Wall Street Journal article
- Geoff Duncan's post at Digital Trends

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