Fergie's Tech Blog

National Security Risks Prompt French BlackBerry Ban

Peter Sayer writes on InfoWorld:

French government members and their advisors have been told not to use BlackBerry smartphones, for national security reasons. The ban on BlackBerry devices is just one of the IT challenges facing new National Assembly members as they take their seats following Sunday's elections.

The smartphones, developed by Canadian company Research in Motion, send and receive e-mail through just a handful of servers in the United Kingdom and in North America -- a reality brought home when a failed software upgrade to the North American servers in April abruptly halted service to BlackBerry users there.

This concentration of data poses a threat to national security, according to Alain Juillet, senior economic intelligence advisor to the French Prime Minister, because of the risk of data interception.

posted by Fergie @ 6/20/2007 11:25:00 AM