Boeing, Blackberry building self-destructing phone

WATERLOO , Ontario, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Smartphone maker Blackberry Ltd. and aerospace manufacturer Boeing Co. are collaborating on a self-destructing phone, Blackberry's CEO revealed.

The phone, known in testing as Boeing Black and developed for use by government employees and defense contractors, is a product of Boeing's secure phone and Blackberry's BES platform, which includes software for tracking the devices. Sold as a sealed device, any attempt to tamper with the phones would immediately delete the data within, a Boeing letter to the FCC, in which a request was made to keep the project confidential, said.

"We're pleased to announce that Boeing is collaborating with BlackBerry to provide a secure mobile solution for Android devices utilizing our BES12 platform. That, by the way, is all they allow me to say," chairman and chief executive John Chen of Waterloo, Ontario-based Blackberry said Friday in a conference call.

Boeing Black includes two SIM cards, instead if the usual one found in smartphones, and has other James Bond-style features, including triggers causing it to self-destruct, Bloomberg News reported. "Boeing has decades of experience providing defense and security customers with secure communications," Boeing spokesman Andy Lee said. "We are working with BlackBerry to help them ensure the BES12 operating system is compatible with, and optimized for use by, the ultra-secure mobile devices favored by the defense and security community."