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An Anonymous Coward writes:

A high-level surveillance probe of Montreal's criminal underworld shows that Canada's federal policing agency has had a global decryption key for BlackBerry devices since 2010. [vice.com]

Neither the RCMP nor BlackBerry confirmed that the cellphone manufacturer handed over the global encryption key, and both fought against a judge's order to release more information about their working relationship, the Crown prosecutors admitted that the federal police service had access to the key.

Although it wouldn't offer police a backdoor into most of its government and business clients who are allowed to use their own organization-specific private keys and make up BlackBerry's core constituency, it would mean that police enjoyed years of access to Canadians' personal cellphones without the public being any the wiser.

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