Blackphone Says BlackBerry ‘Betrayed’ Objectives Of Privacy With Government Access

BlackBerry has been accused of betraying “the objectives of privacy” by providing backdoor access to messages sent through its increasingly outdated hardware and services. This statement was made by SGP Techologies, the creators of the Blackphone, following claims by the struggling Canadian firm that the privacy-focused smartphone offered “consumer-grade privacy” unsuitable for enterprises.

The row was sparked by a blog post from Joe McGarvey, an enterprise mobility strategist at BlackBerry, which claimed the Blackphone was a latest artefact of a “cottage industry of consumer-targeted secure communications products,” created in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding state-sponsored surveillance programmes.

BlackBerry mud-slinging

McGarvey argues that the “purportedly secure” Blackphone operates outside the control of IT departments and isn’t secure for businesses which need an end-to-end solution like BlackBerry Enterprise Service (ECO) rather than device-level security.

“The protection offered by BlackBerry’s end-to-end EMM solution makes the most attractive features of the Blackphone superfluous,” he said.

However SGP Technologies CEO Toby Weir-Jones has refuted such claims, arguing that Blackphone is more suited for the enterprise than BlackBerry’s platform, which is only being kept alive by organisations too stubborn to change.

“The world discovered in 2010 that RIM was willing to compromise its integrity if sufficient pressure was applied by governments intent on spying on the messages sent via the ubiquitous devices,” he said in a retaliatory blog post.

“Various statements from the Saudi, UAE, Indian, and other telecom regulatory bodies all confirmed the same thing: RIM made it technically possible for the formerly-secret encrypted messages to be decrypted and viewed.

‘Betrayal of privacy’

“Much speculation surrounds exactly what was done, and whether it remains in place today, but if anything there was more than one approach which achieved the same basic goal: a betrayal of the objectives of privacy.”

Weir-Jones continued by stating that BlackBerry’s platform was increasingly past its sell-by date, with restrictive architecture and lack of third-party support convincing the majority of businesses to start moving away.

“Nowadays, the only thing sustaining them is the inertia of their remaining enterprise and government customers, but that too will eventually come to rest while we and others continue to win over those accounts,” he added. “Passport is likely the last chance to reinvigorate the Blackberry hardware business; otherwise they will probably shift entirely towards MDM, where they are already at a disadvantage once multi-platform capabilities are taken into account.”

More flexible platform

He said that Blackphone was more transparent, flexible and usable with a number of features that BlackBerry was unable to offer, such as encrypted voice calls, which are conducted over peer-to-peer protocols, not through data centres like BBM Voice, meaning it is impossible for details to be handed over to authorities.

“The whole point of Blackphone is privacy, choice, and control. This puts the ability to make those decisions back into the hands of the device owner. If it’s a private individual, then they control the whole spectrum of decisions. If it’s a company, then the company chooses what to permit its employees to do with company-owned equipment. But we reject outright the argument that an end-to-end approach is the only viable choice, because it’s that same approach which allowed BlackBerry to betray its customers and jettison its credibility.

“Because Blackphone’s PrivatOS is built on a familiar core — Android 4.4.2+ — we’re not asking people to adopt a failed and dying platform in order to have maximum interoperability with an MDM. You’ll soon see announcements about Blackphone’s MDM plans. “

The Blackphone was first announced at Mobile World Congress in February, with the first smartphones shipped last month. SGP sold out their initial allocation, but more devices have since been made available and there are plans for a PrivatOS-based tablet in the future.

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