What happens to your smartphone data — and is it safe?

by Doug Gross, CNN

This week, news out of the Middle East saw BlackBerry, the handheld communication device of choice in the corporate world, assailed on multiple fronts over a security problem.

The problem? It’s too secure.

Governments in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates said they plan to ban BlackBerry use, at least in part, unless they’re able to view messages for security reasons. India and Indonesia are reportedly considering similar measures.

The controversy has raised questions about what happens to data from smartphones and whether users should be concerned about how secure that data is.

The answers can sometimes be tricky, and differ from country to country and phone to phone. So, we’ve rounded up some answers to help make sense of it all.  What happens in various systems.