Posted on August 13, 2010, at 10:49 AM .
RIM has made an official announcement to customers saying it is cooperating with the Indian government as well as other governments during the recent string of complaints regarding access to information. RIM has said that it is cooperating with these governments “in the spirit of supporting legal and national security requirements, while also preserving the lawful needs of citizens and corporations.”
Following this statement, RIM has outlined four main principles that governments must follow if they are to work with RIM on access to private data:
Continue reading ‘RIM Outlines 4 Main Principles of Lawful Access to BlackBerry Data’
Posted on August 6, 2010, at 12:31 PM .
Recently, we posted a story with some quotes from RIM stating they weren’t about to acquiesce to demands about security. We were recently sent an official document sent to government and enterprise customers regarding the situation and it has provided much of the commentary you’ve seen in the mainstream media. Click through after the jump to read:
Continue reading ‘The Official Word from RIM About BlackBerry Security and Data Access’
Posted on July 16, 2010, at 9:17 AM .
We have heard this story before – a public servant is walking around with a BlackBerry that isn’t password protected and they lose the device along with sensitive data. This has happened again, this time in Prince William County, where a public servant lost a device containing private information on almost 700 residents including addresses and Social Security numbers.
According to the executive director for county community services, “it should have been better secured with the use of a password,” he said. “We didn’t do what should have been done.” Not only that, but you would think a government BlackBerry would have an IT admin who would force a password on the device. Also, as soon as the device was found to be missing, the data could be wiped and hopefully stopping someone from taking it before it’s too late.
It’s not clear whether the device was stolen with the intent of taking the personal information, or whether the thief was simply looking to steal a BlackBerry and resell it. This is exactly the sort of situation that BlackBerry Protect will be able to address for individuals.
Posted on May 13, 2010, at 3:24 PM .
The private sector has been doing an incredible job of creating useful applications for smartphone users. Much of the success and boom of the app economy can ultimately be attributed to Apple pioneering the embedded on-device App Store, and showing the average consumer what a smartphone can do. Apps have been available for a long time before the App Store, but they were always something that only the uber-geek knew about. Other smartphones have done an excellent job of creating an app market for developers including RIM. If there is a problem that a smartphone can help solve, it’s almost guaranteed theses days that someone will create an application and try and make a dollar. But what about government? Your local government can play a crucial role in fostering more useful smartphone applications through a movement called Open Data.
Your local government collects an incredible amount of data on daily basis. Everything from real estate conditions, crime rates, weather reports to public transit schedules and maps. Open data is about taking all of this data and making it available with a license that gives users the right to use the data, merge it with other data sets, modify it, and re-distribute it. Open data is also about encouraging governments to package this data in a format that is easy for programs to read and manipulate.
Continue reading ‘Open Data: The Role of Government in Fostering Smartphone Applications’
Posted on March 3, 2010, at 9:42 PM .
Canada has had a monopolistic telecom industry for as long as I can remember, but it seems Parliament is finally taking steps to improve the situation. In the prebudget Throne Speech yesterday, the government said it would open Canada’s borders to greater foreign investment and make the industry more palatable to mergers and acquisitions.
Continue reading ‘Canadian Government Takes Steps to Open Telecom Industry’
Posted on January 18, 2010, at 10:14 AM .
