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Canadian smartphone maker had planned to cease operations at end-2015 because government sought access to its BES traffic.
The start of 2016 brought welcome news for BlackBerry users in Pakistan: the Canadian company announced it will not shut down its services in the country after the government backtracked on an order requiring it to allow monitoring of its traffic.
"After productive discussions, the government of Pakistan has rescinded its shutdown order, and BlackBerry has decided to remain in the Pakistan market," the smartphone maker’s chief operating officer Marty Beard said in a blog post on 31 December.
The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority notified the country’s mobile operators in July that BlackBerry’s BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) servers would no longer be allowed to operate in the country starting in December "for security reasons," BlackBerry explained in November. The PTA subsequently extended the shutdown deadline to the end of the year.
The government had demanded to monitor all of the company’s BES traffic, including email and BBM messaging, BlackBerry said at the time. It confirmed that it would not provide open access to its customers’ information, noting that the demand was not a public safety issue; BlackBerry is always happy to help with investigations into criminal activity, it said.
"We are grateful to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and the Pakistani government for accepting BlackBerry’s position that we cannot provide the content of our customers’ BES traffic, nor will we provide access to our BES servers," Beard wrote last week.
"We look forward to serving the Pakistani market for years to come, including introducing new products and services, and thank our valued customers in Pakistan for their patience and loyalty," he added.
