The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is considering to ask voice over internet protocol (VoIP) service providers like Google and Skype to devise a decryption solution of their services.

The move, if implemented, will mean that the government will be able to track emails sent through Gmail as well as intercept voice calls made through Skype.

In an internal meeting with DoT, officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has told the telecom department that Google and Skype need to provide decryption of their services whenever required by the security agencies for lawful interception.

According to the DoT internal note, there was also a need to bring some parity between the Information Technology (IT) Act and the Indian Telegraph Act-1885 to deal with interception and monitoring.

A Google spokesperson stated that they have not been contacted by the government yet on this issue and thereby, they are unable to comment.

During the meeting, DoT stated that such issues may be taken up at international forums such as ITU, WTO and United Nations wherein service providers are mandated to take permission from member countries before launching new services.

The note further stated that the legal protection for business entities may have to be strengthened against consumer protection or any civilian Act, where business secrets are disclosed to government agencies due to security considerations.

Intelligence Bureau (IB) will also prepare a list of issues faced by them while monitoring services and will be jointly addressed by the department of telecom and IT.

The interception/monitoring issue cropped up after security agencies expressed concerns about intercepting highly encrypted services such as BlackBerry amongst others.