BlackBerry has announced the creation of BlackBerry Government Solutions (BGS), a wholly-owned subsidiary aimed at helping the tech company secure more US federal contracts.

BGS will largely focus on securing BlackBerry’s own projects that need to comply with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), a security framework for companies seeking federal cloud contracts.

The US Capitol building
– Thinkstock / f11photo

Sovereignty matters

BlackBerry CEO John Chen said the company wants “to help the US government securely build and connect all ‘things’ from ATVs and drones to documents, emails, and the data that flows between."

The company says that its products are currently being used to cover security and data privacy in nearly all federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of Transportation, Department of Treasury and Department of Veterans Affairs. In addition, the company’s crisis communication solution protects more than 70 percent of all federal employees in the US.

Bob Day, president of the Washington, DC-based subsidiary, told The Hill that other nations like Canada and Australia are creating their own security requirements like FedRAMP, and that he can see BlackBerry setting up similar regional offices down the road to ensure that BlackBerry products are compliant with the various government regulations that exist and are on the horizon.

"More and more we're seeing agencies make that determination...that people are saying, 'I want the data in this country' and 'I want only the people who are accessing that data to be in this country,'" he said.

Further reading