BlackBerry announced its intentions to acquire German voice and data encryption leader Secusmart back in July at the BlackBerry Security Summit. Shortly after, the German government indicated that it would examine whether or not the purchase of the Dusseldorf-based company would undermine the country’s security interests. The German government notably uses Secusmart-equipped BlackBerry smartphones, and have been quite testy about security since it was revealed that the U.S. at one point had been tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone calls.
According to a new report from Reuters, Germany has signed off on the acquisition, on the condition that BlackBerry would not pass confidential information to foreign intelligence agencies. Germany also reportedly insisted that the country be allowed certain access and control rights to the Secusmart code used in BlackBerry 10.
Regardless of the conditions, the deal is a good one for BlackBerry. Secusmart has been a longtime BlackBerry partner, and the acquisition only strengthens the company’s security credentials.
Update – December 19th: BlackBerry announced this morning that its received regulatory approval and completed its acquisition of Secusmart GmbH. The terms of this deal were not disclosed, but BlackBerry noted that Secusmart’s encryption and anti-eavesdropping capabilities “will bolster BlackBerry’s end-to-end offerings that provide the highest level of security from the device to the management platform.”
[source]Reuters[/source]
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