Story by
Mic Wright
Reporter, TNWMic Wright is a journalist specialising in technology, music and popular culture. He lives in Dublin. He is on Twitter at @brokenbottleboy. Mic Wright is a journalist specialising in technology, music and popular culture. He lives in Dublin. He is on Twitter at @brokenbottleboy.
Jolla, which last hit our radar when it smashed the crowfunding target for its Sailfish OS tablet, has revealed it’s building a secure version of the OS.
It’s teaming up with another Finnish firm, SSH Communications Security, to create Sailfish Secure. The companies believe there’s a need for the project as there are no European alternatives to Android and other US-based operating systems for secure communication.
Details on how Sailfish Secure will work are pretty thin on the ground at the moment but Jolla says it expects the project will be ready to go next year.
Sailfish is an open-source project that spun out of Nokia’s MeeGo initiative. It can run Android apps as well as its own native software.
Jolla says its approach with Sailfish Secure will adapt according to local needs and won’t be dependent on particular hardware.
The level of interest in secure smartphone platforms like Blackphone suggests Jolla could be on to a winner, especially with the continuing reverberations from Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA surveillance programmes.
➤ Jolla
Image credit: Jolla
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