After Research In Motion (owners of BlackBerry), the home ministry will now turn the screws on Microsoft, Google, IBM and Oracle. These companies provide technology and services for the virtual private networks (VPNs) run by various operators in India.
The government will ask them to conform to regulation that allows intelligence agencies to lawfully intercept data. Failure to do so could result in the termination of VPN services by operators using their technology.
In discussions with the department of telecommunications (DoT), the home ministry said intelligence reports pointed out that vendors offered VPN services or technology that did not conform to government instructions.
It has asked DoT to issue VPN service providers and technology developers notices to provide solutions for lawful interception of data encrypted by these technologies. The home ministry has also requested DoT to initiate time-bound consultations with the service providers at the earliest.
VPNs use public telecommunication infrastructure such as the Internet, to provide remote offices or individual users with secure access to their organisation's network. Many companies today have VPNs for inter-office communication. There are 25,0000,000 VPN networks in the country and industry sources estimate that the market is growing at over 150 per cent a year.
In response, a spokesperson for Google India said: "We have not received any communication on this issue from the government. Thereby, we are unable to comment on it."
While an Oracle spokesperson refused to comment, an IBM spokesperson said the company had no comments to offer as they had not seen any communication.
"We have not seen any such notice and we will evaluate it once we do and then share our comments," said a Microsoft spokesperson.
The move to get other global companies to fall in line on encryption technology for data comes close on the heels of the government putting the heat on BlackBerry services. Research In Motion has until December 31 to come up with a solution for decryption of its corporate office email services. It has provided an interim solution for interception of its messenger service, which is now being tested by intelligence agencies.
The concern for security dominating the telecom sector is also reflected in the various restrictions imposed on the import of telecom equipment in the light of concerns that spyware could be embedded in equipment provided by Chinese suppliers.
