Pakistani government gives Blackberry until December 30 to stop services

The Pakistani authorities have allowed the Blackberry Enterprise Service to function until the end of December. At the end of July, Pakistan decided that the BES services have to stop because the service is untraceable. Blackberry is therefore leaving the country.

Initially, Pakistan set the deadline for stopping BES on November 30, but it has been extended to December 30. With the postponement of the Pakistani authorities, Blackberry itself will also leave the Pakistani market a month later instead of December 1. In a blog by COO Marty Beard about Blackberry’s departure from Pakistan, the company elaborates on the reasons for the total departure from the country.

The company’s BES servers are no longer allowed to function by the Pakistani government for “security reasons”. According to the blog, the simple truth is that the Pakistani government wants the ability to monitor all traffic flowing through the Blackberry Enterprise Service, including every BES email and BES-BBM messages. The company does not want to make any concessions in this regard and does not want to build in back doors.

Beard further writes that Blackberry has no problem cooperating with security agencies when it comes to investigating criminal activity, but that the company refuses to participate in giving full access to all BES customer information.

Despite the fact that the consumer version of the BIS service was allowed to continue running by the Pakistani administrators, Blackberry has decided to leave the Pakistani market altogether. Pakistan is demanding too much from the company when it comes to being able to monitor a large part of its customers freely, forcing Blackberry to cease all activities in the country.