BlackBerry Ltd. is pulling its business out of Pakistan after a battle with the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) started because the government allegedly wants access of the enterprise's server and e-mail messages of BlackBerry users.
PTA has announced to other networks in the country that BlackBerry would no longer be operating due to "security reasons," but failed to give details on the alleged security problems.
BlackBerry is known for its effective end-to-end encryption technology, which has the reputation to be quite difficult to tap and intercept data from. If BlackBerry continued to do business in the country, it would have to compromise its own security and policies, according to Yahoo News.
"While we recognize the need to cooperate with lawful government investigative requests of criminal activity, we have never permitted wholesale access to our servers," said Marty Beard, Chief Operating Officer at BlackBerry, according to BBC News.
Beard also expressed regrets over losing almost 5,000 users in Pakistan and has even labeled the country as an "important market."
"The regulator is still in talks with BlackBerry and hopefully it'll be sorted out," said Ismail Shah, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority Chairman, according to Bloomberg.
BlackBerry was set to end its operations Nov. 30 but the exit date has been extended until Dec. 30.
