In Pakistan, the Ministry of Interior on Friday took the decision to block BlackBerry’s secure Enterprise Services (BES), issuing directives to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to implement the decision from 1st December 1, 2015.
The decision was taken after reviewing security aspects of BES. PTA has also sent letters to cellular operators directing the mobile phone companies to ensure that there are no active BES connections after November 30, 2015.
“The decision to block BES was taken on the directives of the interior ministry due to security reasons, said Khurram Mehran, a spokesperson of PTA while talking to The Express Tribune.
He said that the regulator had given enough time to the consumers so that they could convert their communication mechanism to other services.
“There was a challenge that the Blackberry email service could not be tracked or decoded, which leads to the security reasons,” he explained.
“There are few users of this service whose number would not be more than 4,000 to 5,000 in Pakistan”, said Mehran.
He further said that while this service remains active in other countries, they were not facing security problems the likes of which Pakistan was facing.
A letter from authority sent to cellular operators says that BES customers should be given 90 days of notice before closing the services altogether.
PTA spokesperson confirmed that only BES will be blocked, while BIS (BlackBerry Internet Server) services will remain operational. BlackBerry phones, with just voice and SMS facility, will also be unaffected.
We have reached out to BlackBerry for comment.
