Last week, a publication by Vice αποκάλυψε ότι η αστυνομία του Καναδά μπορούσε να χρησιμοποιήσει το Master Key του BlackBerry Messenger κάτι που της επέτρεψε να διαβάσει πάνω από 1 εκατομμύριο μηνύματα που είχαν αποσταλεί από Appliances BlackBerry between 2010 and 2012.
The way the Canadian Police acquired the key was not known, but it helped to pinpoint an 2011 murder case in Montreal.
Today, BlackBerry CEO John Chen confirmed that the company had worked with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), but did not specify whether they had given them the encryption key.
"We have been making our position clear for a long time: technology companies as good corporate citizens should comply with reasonable requests for legal access," Chen said in a post on the company's blog.
He added: "This belief has been tested in an old case and has recently returned to the forefront, with speculation and questioning of BlackBerry's corporate and ethical principles. In the end, the case led to the dissolution of a major criminal organization. "
BlackBerry's stance on sharing its users' personal data with governments stands in stark contrast to Apple's stance on the matter. Recently, the iPhone maker refused to help the Ministry US Justice in "breaking" the device used by a terrorist in San Bernardino.
Of course, BlackBerry is by no means the first company to help law enforcement authorities in this way, but it is really disturbing to hear Mr Chen justify the tactics of monitoring personal data without informing the public.
It is also worth noting that BlackBerry stopped its work in Pakistan last November when the government requested access to its servers. It's not exactly the same as the Montreal murder case, but the fact that the same company was forced to react so differently to these two scenarios should give us a sense of how complicated the debate about encryption is.
