Blackphone is a smartphone designed to provide users with privacy protection, and will be unveiled in February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Madrid-based Geeksphone and Washington-based Silent Circle have teamed up to build the Android-powered smartphone aimed at privacy-savvy and security-conscious consumers in Europe, after Edward Snowden's revelations of the U.S. National Security Agency's mass surveillance programs.
The phone runs on a version of Google's Android operating system called PrivatOS, which is carrier- and vendor-independent. Blackphone will let users make and receive secure phone calls, send texts as well as transfer and store data.
The project is backed by prominent people in the security industry, notably Phil Zimmerman, the creator of an encryption protocol called Pretty Good Protocol, or PGP. According to Zimmerman the focus is on the security of consumers and not on the features of the phone.
"Blackphone provides users with everything they need to ensure privacy and control of their communications, along with all the other high-end smartphone features they have come to expect," said Zimmermann.
[Mashable] [Blackphone] [Geeksphone] [Silent Circle]
