Although the United Arab of Emirates (UAE) has banned the use of Blackberry mobile telephones, one of Tanzania mobile phone communications providers, Zantel, has said that the decision was only applicable in the UAE and so wont affect it. Zantel is a subsidiary of Etilasat which has been affected by the UAE ban. This assurance from Zantel comes as a growing number of its clients are worried that the UAE ban might affect them.
Zantel Acting CEO Norman Morris tolda weekly magazine in Dar es Salaam last weekthat the blockade of Blackberry services in the UAE will absolutely not affect its operations in Tanzania. He added that the decision to block the Blackberry in the UAE only applies to that country not Etisalat subsidiaries like Zantel.
Prodded to comment on the action Tanzania government was planning to take on this instrument, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) said it was a matter for the security departments to decide and not for the regulator.
Recently the CEO for UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, Mohammed al-Ghanem, said that UAE will soon ban e-mail, web browsing and messaging for the Blackberry smartphones due to the national security concerns.
At the heart of the ban or threat of ban is the method in which RIM handles Blackberry data. Blackberry data is encrypted and routed overseas through RIM’s network center in Canada. India, UAE and Saudi Arabia have all forced the Canadian company to install local servers or provide the respective security agencies with access to decrypted data for ease in monitoring. Kenyan Intelligence agency (NSIS) was recently in the news for being so much worried with the blackberry donations the local electoral agency received complaining that foreign intelligence might be privy to results before the Kenyan government.
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