Government of India asks Google, Skype to monitor their user services

The Government of India has asked Google, internet telephone company Skype and other such companies to allow the country's security agencies to monitor their user services to guard against terrorism and other crimes. Minister of State for Telecom and IT Sachin Pilot has said that there is a whole list of companies that have been asked to give access and provide solutions. "We can't afford to take chances with national security. There is a whole list of companies that have been asked to give (access), provide monitoring solution, because law enforcement agencies, the home ministry and intelligence agencies want information for national security. Papers were exchanged months ago, the discussions are on and we are looking at finding a solution soon, since it is a matter of national security," Pilot added. India's fear is that terrorists will use services such as those offered by Skype and Google as they are heavily encrypted and security agencies can't monitor them. The government had also made efforts to find ways to monitor the corporate email services offered by Canada's Research In Motion Ltd. are still under way. While the BlackBerry maker has already offered systems to monitor internet browsing and messenger services used on its smartphones, it maintains that intercepting corporate emails is impossible as there is no technology available to allow monitoring of the service. In December 2010, mobile handset maker Nokia Corp. said it has set up servers in India so as to allow security agencies to monitor its consumer email services.

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