ISLAMABAD

BlackBerry says it will keep operating in Pakistan after reaching an agreement with Pakistan government over user’s data.
"After productive discussions, the government of Pakistan has rescinded its shutdown order, and Blackberry has decided to remain in the Pakistan market," announced Chief operating officer BlackBerry, Marty Beard, on Company blog, early Friday.
The announcement has come in response to a notice of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, issued in July this year, asking the Canadian company to provide access to BlackBerry Enterprise Services (BES) or its enterprise services will be blocked by November 30.
Before expiry of the notice, the PTA voluntarily extended the deadline for another month. The company delayed its exit until the new shutdown date of December 30. Meanwhile, BlackBerry announced exiting from Pakistan by the end of this year vowing it would not compromise on privacy of its users.
Company claims that decision was made after government showed flexibility in its demand off user’s data.
“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.”
According to sources in the PTA the service provider has agreed to provide access to user’s data on demand only.
“We would have to request the company, that we are investigating some suspect and need access to data, and company will provide us all the details and logs of that account,” said a source.
According to reports, in early 2015, Blackberry had a 0.5% share of the global smartphone market. In 2014, Blackberry shipped about 5.8 million handsets, around 70 percent less than the previous year.
There are between 4,000-5,000 users of BES service in Pakistan and most of the users are diplomats and other top bosses of multinational companies, corporate customers, governments and military personnel, who prefer the service due to its special broadcast features and strong security, which cannot be decoded or traced by local security agencies.