After previously claiming it never bends to the will of individual governments, it would appear RIM has had a change of heart, opting to appease authorities in India to avoid any data block on its BlackBerry handsets in the region.

Bloomberg reports RIM will begin granting Indian authorities access to its BlackBerry messenger service on a manual basis at the start of September, with a more formal and automated set-up likely to follow in November.

Beating the block

The move comes as a response to security concerns raised by India at the start of August.

Authorities believe BlackBerry handsets may be used by terrorists to plan attacks within the country, any attempts to monitor communications hampered by BlackBerry's encryption set-up that sends messages through overseas servers.

As a result, India gave RIM until the end of August to reconsider its position, the country threatening to bring down a data block on all BlackBerry handsets if the situation wasn't resolved.

Security saga

RIM previously maintained it had to put the privacy of its userbase before state security, similar data block threats by both the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia initially batted away without all too much comment.

However, unconfirmed reports suggest RIM agreed to install servers in Saudi Arabia for monitoring purposes last week, with the latest chatter suggesting a similar agreement has now been reached in India.

RIM has an estimated 1.1 million subscribers in the Indian market – almost as many as in the UAE and Saudi Arabia combined.

Shares in the company slid by 4.8 percent following the rumoured concession to Indian authorities – its sharpest decline this month.

[source: Bloomberg]