It's extremely popular with over 7 million users worldwide, is amazingly useful allowing users to surf the web, send emails and make calls but French government members and officials have been banned from using this popular wireless Smartphone known as the BlackBerry over fears that their use may pose a security threat and release French government secrets to the US.

The government is concerned because the data in emails and telephone calls sent via the Blackberry is routed through just a small handful of servers in both the USA and in Britain and it is worried that the information sent could easily be intercepted by the US National Security Agency. In France Alain Juillet head of Economic Intelligence told the Le Monde newspaper "The risks of interception are real. It is economic war"

BlackBerry makers Research in Motion state that the data sent by the BlackBerry uses 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and cannot be read by security agencies and that emails sent via the device are more heavily encrypted than online banking websites.

The Blackberry has already been approved by NATO, in other countries it has been approved by government security organisations in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and is already used by other government officials across the globe.

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BlackBerry Website

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