The minister of state for communication and IT, Sachin Pilot today informed Lok Sabha through written reply that the government has set up a Committee to look into the aspects of interception of encrypted communications comprehensively for all types of services so as to address the needs of security agencies.

The reply further stated that several service providers are providing services all over the world like Gmail, Blackberry email, Nokia messaging , Hush mail, Skype, Video chats and other services across the globe for sharing audio, video, image, email, data and accessing other web services any time and everywhere by everyone in a secure manner. The security of these services is achieved through encryption technology. These services are mostly availed by the citizens world over either in their individual capacity or as part of commercial activities. There are multifarious aspects involved in dealing with the issues relating to such communication services such as technical and international relationship, legal and regulatory policy, commercial and security requirements etc.

The Committee has analysed all the above issues to work out a focused and practical proposal which balance the requirements of security agencies and secure communication needs of trade, commerce and industry. The above complexities involved in the issue resulted in the Committee being unable to come out with unanimous conclusive recommendations.

Telecom service providers are of the view that they are able to provide the interception facility for encrypted services but decryption of the intercepted communications / services is not their responsibility. Security agencies, however, desire the intercepted communication in readable format. The Government regularly interacts with all stakeholders to solve the issues arising from time to time and implement solutions to the extent feasible.