BlackBerry confirms exit from Pakistan, blaming security reasons

BlackBerry has finally confirmed that the company will no longer operate in Pakistan. The announcement was made via the company’s official Inside BlackBerry blog by Marty Beard, Chief Operating Officer at BlackBerry.

When a security oriented company exits any country, it is a matter that is obviously related to privacy and this one is no different. BlackBerry in its official statement blamed the Pakistani government that wanted complete access into its secure BlackBerry Enterprise Service traffic, which also includes every BES e-mail and BES BBM message. Indeed, security and privacy are the principles of the Canadian company’s services, so it was understood that the best thing to do was to move out.

The official post from Inside Blackberry is as follows:

“After November 30, BlackBerry will no longer operate in Pakistan. While we regret leaving this important market and our valued customers there, remaining in Pakistan would have meant forfeiting our commitment to protect our users’ privacy. That is a compromise we are not willing to make.

In July, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority notified the country’s mobile phone operators that BlackBerry’s BES servers would no longer be allowed to operate in the country starting in December “for security reasons.”

The truth is that the Pakistani government wanted the ability to monitor all BlackBerry Enterprise Service traffic in the country, including every BES e-mail and BES BBM message. But BlackBerry will not comply with that sort of directive. As we have said many times, we do not support “back doors” granting open access to our customers’ information and have never done this anywhere in the world.

Pakistan’s demand was not a question of public safety; we are more than happy to assist law enforcement agencies in investigations of criminal activity. Rather, Pakistan was essentially demanding unfettered access to all of our BES customers’ information. The privacy of our customers is paramount to BlackBerry, and we will not compromise that principle.

What we said in July when rumors of Pakistan’s decision started to swirl remains true today: “BlackBerry provides the world’s most secure communications platform to government, military and enterprise customers. Protecting that security is paramount to our mission. While we recognize the need to cooperate with lawful government investigative requests of criminal activity, we have never permitted wholesale access to our BES servers.”

BlackBerry’s focus will remain on protecting corporate, government and military communications throughout the world, including in South Asia and the Middle East, wherever our technology operates. Although the Pakistani government’s directive was aimed only at our BES servers, we have decided to exit the market altogether, because Pakistan’s demand for open access to monitor a significant swath of our customers’ communications within its borders left us no choice but to exit the country entirely.”

The news about BlackBerry’s exit from Pakistan is not new as details about the same had surfaced back in July where the company’s tiffs with the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) were pretty evident. BlackBerry was confronted in a similar manner in other countries like India, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia but none to such an extent and more importantly such consequences.

While access for data and and security was something that any company would give into, delivering complete access to all data is not good for business and definitely not good for a company that prides itself on privacy and security.