BlackBerry, a security threat

The United Arab Emirates has declared BlackBerry smartphones as potential threat to national security, saying the devices operate beyond the jurisdiction of national laws and are open to misuse.

The move raises concerns of another attempt by the government to control the flow of information in the Arab Gulf nation, which actively censors websites and other forms of media seen as harming national security or conservative local values. At the same time, however, the UAE is trying to establish itself as an international business hub, the Associated Press reports.

This is the second major controversy over the Blackberry in the UAE. A year ago, the Middle East country’s biggest state-run mobile operator was caught encouraging unwitting BlackBerry users to install software on the devices that could allow outsiders to peer inside. The government has never made fully clear what happened in that case.

In the latest flap, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority voiced fears that the BlackBerry manages data in a way that could allow it to be misused. BlackBerry devices were singled out because they are the only phones operating in the country that automatically relay users’ information to privately managed data centers overseas, the regulator said.

“As a result of how Blackberry data is managed and stored, in their current form, certain Blackberry applications allow people to misuse the service, causing serious social, judicial and national security repercussions,” the regulator said in a statement carried on the state news agency on Sunday.

It said that BlackBerry devices operate “beyond the jurisdiction” of national laws because they immediately send data abroad to be “managed by a foreign, commercial organisation.”