RIM reaches agreement with U.A.E., avoids BlackBerry ban

The Canadian maker of BlackBerry smartphones has reached an agreement with authorities from the United Arab Emirates that will avoid a suspension of the device’s messaging services within the country.

U.A.E.’s chief telecom regulator had threatened to ban BlackBerry services unless it was given means to monitor messages for national security threats. The announcement prompted several other nations including India and Kuwait to demand similar access and eventually forced U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to weigh in on behalf of Ontario-based Research In Motion.

“The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority [TRA] has confirmed Blackberry [sic] services are now compliant with the UAE’s telecommunications regulatory framework,” the regulator said in a statement. “Therefore, the TRA has confimed today that all Blackberry services in the UAE will continue to operate as normal and no suspension of service will occur on October 11, 2010.”

The TRA provided no details on how it will monitor the messages, but credited RIM for “positive engagement and collaboration” in avoiding the ban. Similar deals between RIM and other nations have shifted the device’s messaging services onto domestic carriers’ servers, which local governments have access to. RIM has said repeatedly it cannot unlock any individual user’s encryption on its primary servers by design and refuses to consider doing so.