TORONTO, April 18 (Reuters) - Tech companies should comply
with lawful requests to access protected data, BlackBerry
BB.TO Chief Executive John Chen said on Monday, in thinly
veiled criticism of rival Apple Inc AAPL.O for its recent
standoff with the FBI.
Chen made the comment in a blog posting after reports by
Vice and Motherboard last week that threw a spotlight on a 2014
case in which Canadian law enforcement authorities used
intercepted messages between some BlackBerry devices to unravel
an organized crime network.
The devices were consumer phones that were not protected by
BlackBerry's BES server, which helps secure any devices running
within corporate networks.
"We have long been clear in our stance that tech companies
as good corporate citizens should comply with reasonable lawful
access requests," said Chen in the post.[http://blck.by/1qUkdJg
]
"We are indeed in a dark place when companies put their
reputations above the greater good," said Chen, who is known to
not shy away from publicly sparring with rivals.
Chen, who maintains the BES is "impenetrable" and that only
BlackBerry's clients can grant access to messages secured by it,
has weighed in on the lawful access topic a number of times in
the last few months, including in another blog last December. [http://blck.by/1k4jy46
]
He also commented on the topic at a media roundtable earlier
this month, when asked to comment about BlackBerry's security
capabilities in light of the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation's hacking of an iPhone used by one of the San
Bernardino shooters. Apple AAPL.O had declined to help
authorities unlock the encrypted device.
"Not that we can crack every phone, but from the standpoint
of BlackBerry's philosophy, policy and principles, we will help
whenever there is a formal subpoena that comes to us and we have
been doing it for many, many, years," said Chen.
"But since we don't have a backdoor and since the encryption
technology has now gotten to a point where we may, or may not be
able to penetrate it, we will have the same difficulties, but we
won't have the same attitude about it and it won't be front page
news."
"Of course we are not Apple, so it may or may not make front
page news either," added Chen with a coy smile.