The best known of the personal digital assistants (PDAs), the BlackBerry, produced by the Ontario company Research in Motion (RIM), has received damaging criticism from the French government. Such has been the growth of these handheld devices in the corporate environment since 1999, they were dubbed ‘Crackberry’ because so many users found them addictive, and could not survive without one. Now ‘Crackberry’ has taken on an entirely different meaning altogether: as something whose confidential codes allegedly can be ‘cracked’, broken into, and the stored data stolen.

RIM has vehemently denied these allegations, claiming that the BlackBerry has the most secure wireless data solution in production, and pointing to the UK government and NATO as among its users. However US bankers, aware of the Blackberry’s reputation, often start international meetings by ostentatiously removing the batteries from their BlackBerrys and placing the machine on the table. One large international company, Total, has never allowed its staff to use the BlackBerry, for ‘security reasons’. Asked to elaborate, Total pointedly said, ‘There are plenty of other perfectly good PDAs’, suggesting that the issue related to the BlackBerry alone.

The devices operate through servers in the US and the UK, and are said to be accessible by government agencies. This may explain why the Secrétariat Général de la Défense Nationale (SGDN), responsible for national security in France, has banned their use by anyone working in the office of the new French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, claiming there is a ‘real risk of interception by third parties’.

A member of France's governing party in the National Assembly, Jacques Myard, said French ministers needed to be aware that Blackberries were not secure devices and that some were still secretly using them.