Blackberry to exit Pakistan after refusing to comply with data requests

But BlackBerry’s exit from the Pakistani market is not limited to its BES services, as the company has decided not to sell any smartphones in the country as well.

BlackBerry on Monday announced that it will stop operating in Pakistan by the end of next month due to restrictions imposed on its services by the government which has been demanding access to the user data of the Canadian smartphone maker.

The goal of Beard’s original post was to share BlackBerry’s perspective on what is really going on in Pakistan.

BlackBerry has announced that it will pull its operations in Pakistan from today, quoting a recent government notice which read that the company would not be permitted to continue its services in the country after December. In the instances of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and India, all countries that threatened to ban BES if BlackBerry did not grant them unfettered access, BlackBerry relented to those governments and gave them access. BlackBerry customers living and operating outside of Pakistan will still be able to access their messages while visiting the country, because their data is stored in servers elsewhere.

Because of its policy to protect the privacy of its users, BlackBerry would not comply with such directive.

BlackBerry will “exit the country entirely” on 30 December, when BlackBerry mobile phones within the country will cease to operate. “The privacy of our customers is paramount to BlackBerry, and we will not compromise that principle”, said on the company’s post.

BlackBerry’s focus will remain on protecting corporate, government and military communications throughout the world, including in South Asia and the Middle East, wherever out technology operates.

BES users access internet through a dedicated server which is a private, internal network within a company and is like a mini-internet that is cut off from the rest of the world.

Mister. Mustache stated that the capacity to observe all Rim Enterprise Companies traffic in the united kingdom was needed by Pakistan, including BlackBerry Messenger communications and emails.