German officials barred from using BlackBerries and iPhones

Government Ministers in Germany have been advised by the government to discard BlackBerry and iPhone smartphones because of “a dramatic increase of attacks against” its networks. Besides this, a number of German ministries are considering a general ban on the use of smartphones, as confirmed by Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière.

He said that ministers and senior civil servants had been told to use the Simko2 gadgets offered by T-Systems instead, following advice from the German federal office for information security (BSI).

Germany is concerned over the fact that the data for the BlackBerry smartphone passes through two Research in Motion centers in the UK and Canada.

De Maizière added that there was a possible risk of “political IT attacks” from organised crime and foreign intelligence agencies and said that such harm to the government could increase with the use of the BlackBerry and other smartphones.

"The BlackBerry infrastructure is a closed proprietary system. [But] the access standard to our networks must be determined by the government and not by a private company," he said.