Stay on Top of Emerging Technology Trends Get updates impacting your industry from our GigaOm Research Community

In case you weren’t sure, your phone is not truly secure. The NSA and who-knows-who-else can hack into iPhone(s aapl), Android(s goog) and even BlackBerry(s bbry) devices. So here, finally, is a device that promises privacy in your pocket. Meet the Blackphone.

The first thing you need to worry about with promises like these is who’s behind them. In this case, it’s a solid crew – Blackphone comes from Silent Circle, the secure communications firm founded by PGP creator Phil Zimmermann and Jon Callas, which has set up a joint venture with the small Spanish handset maker Geeksphone. Geeksphone has made Android handsets for years, though generally for a specialist audience (its latest effort can run either Android or a version of Firefox OS).

Blackphone uses a security-focused version of Android called PrivatOS, that should be able to run all the normal Android apps. It can also be used for secure phone calls, texts, file exchange and storage, video chat and browsing, and it also anonymizes activity using a VPN. Much of this is doubtless based on Silent Circle’s existing secure communications products, and I’ll bet Dark Mail, the recently-crowdfunded secure email service from Silent Circle and Lavabit, will also find its way in there when it’s ready.

Zimmermann said in a statement:

“I have spent my whole career working towards the launch of secure telephony products. 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.”

Callas added a bit more detail in a video on the Blackphone website, saying:

“It’s configured, set up, modified so that the privacy aspects of it are all melded together from the security parts of the CPU to the hardware of the phone to the operating system and apps, so that just about everything that you do is private.”

Interestingly, the joint venture is based in Switzerland, which has probably the tightest privacy laws in the world and — being neutral — doesn’t willingly hand over data to anyone. The device is unlocked and Blackphone says it will be demonstrated at next month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Preorders will begin then too, on 24 February.

There could be a huge market for this device in business and also in the public sector. Depending on the as-yet-unannounced price, consumers might also bite. After all, the Blackphone team is promising a high-end handset that isn’t undermined by a data-extracting business model.

Privacy is the business model here. We’re going to see a lot more of that this year.