Skip to main content

Centinel Mobiles’ Android phone hopes to protect your privacy and your privates

Centinel Mobiles
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Finnish startup Centinel Mobiles is working on a new Android smartphone that focuses on privacy and promises reduced exposure to radiation. The phone, which is currently in development, will sport a sliding privacy switch with three positions to offer owners a fully configurable way to reduce or cut connectivity and functionality. The device will also monitor exposure to radiation in real time and reject congested or poor signals that use more power and potentially increase radio frequency exposure.

“Centinel takes cell phone privacy seriously,” co-founder Pasi Ala-Mieto told Digital Trends. “And we want to ensure user well-being by reducing radiation levels. Centinel aims to be the most responsible supplier of cell phones.”

The idea with the privacy switch is that people could slide it on when needed. They can configure precisely what each switch position does, so they may, for example, switch it to position one before going into a meeting to turn off the microphone and camera, or slide to position two to cut GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi in a public area. The idea is that the switch would work on a hardware level, separate from the Android operating system, so that Android has no access to the switch to control it, making it impossible to hack. People can dictate precisely what the switch cuts in each position.

Centinel Mobiles
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The issue of privacy has spawned a few niche phones and devices in recent years, such as Sirin Labs’ Solarin, Dark Matter’s Katim, and Silent Circle’s Blackphone, but none of them have really caught on. While there’s a niche market for government officials and corporate executives with legitimate spying concerns, the general public haven’t shown a great deal of interest. Centinel hopes to change that with an affordable device that offers more than just privacy.

“Cell phone radiation has been a concern for two decades now, and continues to be an even bigger preoccupation as cell phones are having an increasingly serious role in our everyday life, and being used from a very young age,” Ala-Mieto said.

Some people are certainly worried about the potentially negative impact of cell phone radiation. A recent report published by the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection revealed which smartphones emit the most and least radiation by measuring each device’s specific absorption rate, or SAR. This refers to the radiofrequency waves that smartphones emit and that may be absorbed by our bodies. Ala-Mieto has been working at Cellraid for the last few years, a company that focuses on monitoring cell phone radiation with an app that measures SAR output among other things.

There’s still a great deal of debate about whether cell phone radiation is dangerous. It was classified as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2011, but coffee is in the same category. The rise of 5G has also sparked radiofrequency exposure concerns, but there’s still a lot of argument on the topic.

Centinel plans to use Cellraid’s Quanta Algorithm to monitor exposure to radiation levels in real time and to act to reduce them when they hit a certain level. It’s also adopting an antenna design that will focus on connecting to strong signals and rejecting congested or poor signals because it’s poor signals that cause the phone to boost power, causing more radiation and draining your battery faster in the process.

Centinel Mobiles was founded by Janne Knuutinen who worked in R&D at Nokia for several years, which is also where Ala-Mieto began his career. The company is still developing the new phone and aiming for a “late 2019 or early 2020” release. The Centinel phone is expected to cost around 600 euros (around $670). We’ll keep you posted on its development. In the meantime, learn how to improve your Android privacy.

Editors' Recommendations

Simon Hill
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Simon Hill is an experienced technology journalist and editor who loves all things tech. He is currently the Associate Mobile…
If you have one of these apps on your Android phone, delete it immediately
The app drawer on the Google Pixel 8 Pro.

The NSO Group raised security alarms this week, and once again, it’s the devastatingly powerful Pegasus malware that was deployed in Jordan to spy on journalists and activists. While that’s a high-profile case that entailed Apple filing a lawsuit against NSO Group, there’s a whole world of seemingly innocuous Android apps that are harvesting sensitive data from an average person’s phone.
The security experts at ESET have spotted at least 12 Android apps, most of which are disguised as chat apps, that actually plant a Trojan on the phone and then steal details such as call logs and messages, remotely gain control of the camera, and even extract chat details from end-to-end encrypted platforms such as WhatsApp.
The apps in question are YohooTalk, TikTalk, Privee Talk, MeetMe, Nidus, GlowChat, Let’s Chat, Quick Chat, Rafaqat, Chit Chat, Hello Chat, and Wave Chat. Needless to say, if you have any of these apps installed on your devices, delete them immediately.
Notably, six of these apps were available on the Google Play Store, raising the risk stakes as users flock here, putting their faith in the security protocols put in place by Google. A remote access trojan (RAT) named Vajra Spy is at the center of these app's espionage activities.

A chat app doing serious damage

Read more
How to use Android Recovery Mode to fix your phone or tablet
Pixel 3 recovery mode

Here's an unfun scenario: You've got one of the best Android phones or tablets, but things aren't working right. Typical virus scans and other troubleshooting fixes aren't working. It is time to use recovery mode. This mode allows you to reboot your system and get a fresh start without any viruses or other issues that were potentially causing you trouble.

Unfortunately, there's no one standard way to get into Recovery Mode. In other words, Samsung Galaxy phones and HTC phones have different pathways into the modes. Luckily for you, however, we have the most complete guide to entering Recovery Mode and you should be able to figure out how to get in on just about any device using the steps below.

Read more
Motorola’s newest cheap Android phone looks shockingly good
A render of the front and back of the Moto G Play (2024).

Last year was the first in almost a decade without a Motorola Moto G Play launch of some kind. The last device, the Moto G Play (2023), launched in December 2022 and, well, it was a little disappointing. Thankfully, Motorola heard its critics, and has delivered the Moto G Play (2024) — the biggest upgrade for Motorola's budget range in years.

With a new processor, camera, and various small additions, Motorola hopes the new upgrades are enough to propel the Moto G Play (2024) to the top of lists of the best budget smartphones. But will it? Here's everything you need to know about Motorola's new $150 device, the Moto G Play (2024).
More power and a new camera

Read more