BlackBerry on Monday said it will continue to operate in Pakistan until the end of the year after the government extended its shutdown order on the smartphone maker by one month.
The Canadian firm initially said it would cease operations in the country at the end of November, after refusing to comply with a government order to monitor its traffic.
The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority notified the country’s mobile operators in July that BlackBerry’s BES servers would no longer be allowed to operate in the country starting in December &qu ot;for security reasons," BlackBerry’s chief operating officer Marty Beard explained in a blog post on Monday.
However, he quickly amended that blog post with the new deadline.
"Since this post, the government of Pakistan has notified BlackBerry that it has extended its shutdown order from 30 November to 30 December," the post reads. "BlackBerry will delay its exit from the Pakistan market until then."
The purpose of Beard’s original post was to share BlackBerry’s perspective on what is really going on in Pakistan.
The government demanded to be able to monitor all of the company’s BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) traffic, including email and BBM messaging, Beard explained.
"As we have said many times, we do not support ‘back doors’ granting open access to our customers’ information and have never done this anywhere in the world," Beard said.
"Pakistan’s demand was not a question of public safety," he added, confirming that BlackBerry is happy to assist law enforcement agencies in investigations of criminal activity. "Rather, Pakistan was essentially demanding unfettered access to all of our BES customers’ information," and BlackBerry is not willing to compromise the privacy of its customers, he said.
"We regret leaving this important market and our valued customers there," Beard said.
