While we tend to agree with this, Chen is not disturbed by the fact that Apple is lowering the standards of the world with its expensive trinkets which have a year's life expectency. He has  waded into Apple's FBI encryption battle. Chen saidt that the world is in a "dark place when companies put their reputations above the greater good".

Chen said:

"One of our competitors, we call it 'the other fruit company', has an attitude that it doesn’t matter how much it might hurt society, they’re not going to help. I found that disturbing as a citizen. I think BlackBerry, like any company, should have a basic civil responsibility. If the world is in danger, we should be able to help out."

He said that did not mean that BlackBerry had to hand out everyone's personal data. Chen pointed out that a lot of "nonsense" has been reported about the company and its approach to such situations.

"Of course, there need to be clear guidelines. The guidelines we've adopted require legal assets. A subpoena for certain data. But if you have the data, you should give it to them. There’s some complete nonsense about what we can and can’t do. People are mad at us that we let the government have the data. It’s absolute garbage. We can’t do that."

Chen warned that mandatory back doors aren't a good idea either.

"There's proposed legislation in the US, and I'm sure it will come to the EU, that every vendor needs to provide some form of a back door. That is not going to fly at all. It just isn't," he said.