RIM has avoided a ban on its BlackBerry smartphones in the United Arab Emirates following eleventh-hour talks with the telecoms regulator.
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority stayed a ban on sales of the smartphones on Friday, stating that RIM’s BlackBerry services now comply with its regulatory framework and “will continue to operate as normal.”
It had threatened to suspend services from today due to concerns encrypted data sent via offshore BlackBerry servers posed a security risk, the BBC reported.
While the regulator acknowledged RIM’s “positive engagement,” in resolving the problem, US secretary of state Hilary Clinton may also have had a hand in the deal, after discussing the potential ban with UAE officials in August.
Canada-based RIM has come under increasing pressure this year to offer access to encrypted BlackBerry e-mails and instant messages, with Saudi Arabia, India and Lebanon all threatening to ban the handsets if RIM didn’t comply.
The vendor reached a deal with Saudi authorities in August, but Indian security officials last week rejected the firm’s technical solution for allowing access to data, giving it until October 31 to come up with a new fix.