Nokia open to setting up infra for monitoring push mail

Amid concerns raised by security agencies over push mail services (similar to Blackberry's operations) offered by Nokia, the Finnish handset maker today said it was open to setting up infrastructure to help the government monitor the contents.

"We are prepared to assist the applicable government authorities with their requests for a high degree of security and we are in the process of installing the required infrastructure. We follow all local laws and regulations that are required by the government," Nokia Managing Director Shiv Kumar told PTI.

At present, Nokia's messaging service, which was launched in India in 2009, is in beta format. The push email service allows corporates and consumers to easily manage multiple accounts.

The push mail delivery system has real-time capability to "push" email through to the client as soon as it arrives, rather than requiring the client to poll and collect or pull mail manually. With a push email smartphone, for example, the client's mailbox is constantly updated with arriving email without user intervention.

There are reports that the Intelligence Bureau has asked the Telecom Department to stop Nokia’s popular messaging services in India until they can be monitored.

The IB had issued similar warnings to BlackBerry services, Google’s Gmail and internet telephony firm Skype earlier this year.

Blackberry has been served notices several times to install servers within India so that the contents could be monitored by security agencies.

Sources said that the Canadian firm has agreed to meet the guidelines set by security agencies.

Since Nokia's push email service is quite similar to Blackberry operations, the government has issued a similar notice to Finnish company -- asking it to provide monitoring facilities to the agencies concerned.