Imad Hoballah, acting chairman and CEO of Lebanon’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, said on Friday that his agency is initiating talks with RIM next week, to ensure that security agencies in the country can monitor RIM’s network, as part of a move to strengthen telecommunications network security in the country afte after the country recently charged three people of spying for Israel.

While ruling out a suspension of BlackBerry services, Indonesia wants RIM to have a server in the country. Heru Sutadi, commissioner of Badan Regulasi Telekomunikasi Indonesia (BRTI), the country’s regulator, said that BlackBerry traffic from the country now goes to Canada, and Indonesia cannot guarantee to local customers the security of the data that RIM processes, keeps, and saves in Canada.

In a customer update earlier this week circulated to the media, RIM said that it does not possess a "master key," nor does any "back door" exist in the system that would allow RIM or any third party to gain unauthorized access to the encryption key or corporate data. The symmetric key system used in the BlackBerry security architecture for enterprise customers ensures that only the customer possesses a copy of the encryption key.

RIM is in a tight spot because if it is seen to compromise with governments on security and privacy, the BlackBerry will lose its attractiveness to customers, Matthew Reed, who heads research on wireless telecommunications in the Middle East and Africa for Informa Telecoms & Media, said earlier this week.