Security concerns has prompted government to direct Department of Telecom (DoT) to issue directives to the concerned firms to comply with security laws of the country. At present the security agencies are reporting difficulty in deciphering messages sent through BlackBerry, Skype and Gmail services.

In 2008, government had issued similar directives to BlackBerry and threatened to ban its services. Later, the issue was resolved amicably with all security concerns related to the services addressed. The latest government move is surprising in this context.

A recent meeting of Indian security agencies had raised the issue of the three services, which they said pose threat to national security in their present formats. The agencies are facing difficulty in unscrambling the messages sent through the services. They fear that these services may be misused by terrorists to dodge monitoring by security agencies.

BlackBerry phones use codes with an encryption of 256 bits. This scrambles the messages before sending them. Later the messages are unscrambled at the receiving handset. BlackBerry maker, Canada-based Research in Motion (RIM) will be given 15 days for compliance. Skype Services is also expected to receive a similar communication from DoT. Both services may be banned or blocked in the country, if they fail to comply within the deadline.

However, in the case of Google, timeframe may not be insisted, but asked to ensure that the encryption for Gmail Services is in a format that can be deciphered by security agencies.

The said communications to the three firms are believed to be dispatched in the first week of July.

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