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BlackBerry To Continue Pakistan Operations

By Peter R | Update Date: Jan 02, 2016 08:32 PM EST

After asking it to close its operations, Pakistan is letting BlackBerry continue when latter reportedly refused to compromise its privacy.

BlackBerry was asked to share BBM exchanges, emails and provide the Pakistani government access to BES servers, which the Canadian company refused. In response the government cited security reasons while ordering that BlackBerry Encryption Services (BES) be shutdown. The company decided that it will windup all of its operations, Engadget reports.

Now it seems that will not happen after all. BlackBerry's COO Marty Beard announced the continuation of his company's operations in Pakistan while stating that the company will not compromise its user privacy.

"After productive discussions, the Government of Pakistan has rescinded its shutdown order, and BlackBerry has decided to remain in the Pakistan market. We are grateful to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and the Pakistani government for accepting BlackBerry's position that we cannot provide the content of our customers' BES traffic, nor will we provide access to our BES servers," Beard said in a blog post.

Incidentally, BlackBerry faced a similar situation in India, Pakistan's neighbor, a few years ago. BlackBerry relented and shared access to BBM and mails but did comply with India government's demands for sharing BES, CNN Money reports.

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