The privacy-centric Blackphone will be launching in three weeks

MIT Technology Review Digital Summit — “Blackphone,” a privacy-protecting secure smartphone, is due to ship in three weeks from Silent Circle, a company co-founded by encryption pioneer Phil Zimmermann. The Android-based Blackphone, produced in partnership with Geeksphone, will be available from carriers priced at $629, Silent Circle LLC President Zimmermann said Tuesday at a presentation at the conference here. Silent Circle hopes to see significant demand for its product based on growing awareness of privacy and security, Zimmermann said. “More and more people are waking up to this problem,” he said. “There’s a growing number of people who want to push back.” About 60% of people are willing to give up private information indiscriminately, but that still leaves a big potential market for Blackphone. Silent Circle expects to sell millions of the phones, Zimmermann said. Silent Circle and Geeksphone unveiled the Blackphone at Mobile World Congress in February, and sold out its first batch of several thousand in weeks. FreedomPop also launched a secure phone — nicknamed the “Snowden Phone” — at about the same time. (See Blackphone Unveils Secure Smartphone, FreedomPop Launches ‘Snowden Phone’.)