The threat by the government of the United Arab Emirates to ban data services of the pioneering BlackBerry smartphone owned by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) has vindicated the maxim that changing circumstances can turn one?s greatest strength into a greatest weakness.
Since its release in 2002 as the first smartphone with wireless e-mail, BlackBerry has mushroomed as a favourite of on-the-move professionals due its ultra-safe communication technology. Now, the same cachets of impenetrable encryption and foolproof electronic transmission of data have come back to haunt RIM, as governments wake up to the varied dangers posed by a highly influential but inaccessible tranches of digital information.
As per the latest estimates, BlackBerry handhelds are operated by 41 million consumers in 175 countries. A key factor that has motored RIM?s expanding customer base is the guaranteed privacy of BlackBerry?s e-mail and messaging services vis-?-vis rival smartphones, whose e-mails move on the open Internet and could fall prey to corporate competitors, muckrakers or nosy state agencies.
BlackBerry?s high security features were much sought after not only by private users but also by government units dealing with sensitive matters. Thanks to RIM?s technological prowess in ensuring secrecy, US President Barack Obama was (unusually) permitted by the US intelligence establishment to keep his BlackBerry after entering office in 2009 for staying in touch with senior aides. Military and police forces in several countries rely on BlackBerry for confidential in-house messages.
Yet, the UAE?s ultimatum to suspend BlackBerry?s e-mail, Web browsing and messenger services by October, unless RIM allows authorities to monitor its solidly encrypted data, makes it evident that states want to have their cake and eat it too. Agents of state prefer absolutely fail-safe communication technology for themselves, qua keepers of official secrets, but are demanding an easily interceptable form of mobile e-mail and messaging when the users happen to be outside the security establishment, i.e., citizens and foreign visitors who set their BlackBerrys on roaming mode.
The justification for this duality is as old as raison d?etat and social contract theory of state formation. Those in the security services are on a pedestal as keepers of public order and hence not subject to the same lawful limitations on information freedom as the rest of society. More and more governments in Asia are on red alert about national security ramifications of BlackBerry?s unmatched encryption and location of remote servers in distant Canada. At present, terrorists, anti-national elements and criminals can plot away to perfection using BlackBerry without fear of timely detection.
UAE?s dispute with RIM dates back to three years ago, when the former?s intelligence arms raised concerns about not being able to conduct surveillance of BlackBerry e-mails. A couple of headline-grabbing transnational crimes committed on UAE soil? the assassinations of a prominent ex-rebel boss from Chechnya in March 2009 and of a high-ranking Hamas commander in January 2010?very likely involved Internet-based coordination between the killers in Dubai and their minders abroad. These incidents spurred fears in UAE officialdom that the country?s international reputation as a placid business-friendly hub could be jeopardised if human and digital security structures were not enhanced.
As a dictatorial princely confederation, UAE?s Emirs also nurture familiar anxieties of falling ?victim? to political opponents who could capitalise on BlackBerry?s privacy advantage to skirt censorship and mobilise for regime change. Similar nervousness underlies the government of Egypt?s assertion that it will not hesitate to follow UAE and Saudi Arabia by banning BlackBerry data services ?should they indeed pose a security threat?.
Authoritarian Arab states suffer from sleepless nightmares about revolutions catalysed by fast-paced information technology that is too slippery to control. The escalating sophistication of smartphones, as well as prognoses that cell phones hold the key to further strides of the Internet, imply that handsets contain a vast storehouse of informational power to alter or disturb the status quo. The Middle Eastern setbacks to RIM, which had been counting on inroads in the region to compensate for losing ground to Apple?s iPhone in the US market, are a reflection of the infinite possibilities unleashed by mobile telephony and the political backlash thereof.
India, too, has been engaged in a tussle with RIM since 2008 over intelligence agencies? frustrations about failing to snoop on BlackBerry?s contents. India?s digital security mavens find BlackBerry?s encryption ciphers impossible to crack and are unanimous that RIM either set up a server within the country for them to monitor BlackBerry data flows or face the same music as in the Middle East.
Though India is a stable democratic polity with none of the regime vulnerability stalking Arab kingdoms, it is eager to keep tabs on tech-savvy terrorists who have carried out numerous attacks via Internet-based means. The same irrefutable logic behind the Indian government?s recent ban on mobile phone hardware supplied by Chinese manufacturers like Huawei and ZTZ applies to renewed calls in New Delhi for RIM to make amends on BlackBerry?s software management.
Though RIM has still not caved in to pressures from either the Middle Eastern or the Indian governments, the spectre of losing its foothold in new lucrative markets is certain to drive it to compromise with the complaining states. With overall revenue share from outside North America perched at 37%, RIM is unlike Google, which could afford to lose China and still rule the roost. Reuters? analysts have already sounded the death knell for RIM in the US with a prediction that ?BlackBerry?s era may be ending?. CEO Jim Balsillie has no choice but to water down the device?s legendary privacy to avert a coup de grace in emerging markets.
The author is associate professor of world politics at the OP Jindal Global University