Unplugged, a company cofounded and backed by Erik Prince, who is also the founder of infamous private military contractor Blackwater, has just released a new version of its “privacy-first” UP Phone that will be made in the US — at some point.
The original UP Phone was described by the company as “the ultimate privacy-focused smartphone” and by privacy platform GrapheneOS as “a clear cut scam.” (It was first announced in June 2022, though it didn’t reach customers until 2024; Unplugged wouldn’t tell me how many units were sold, only that it sold out within three hours.) Now, Unplugged has launched a “major update” to the phone. Echoing claims made by Trump Mobile regarding its T1 Phone, Unplugged says that it has plans to build the updated UP Phone in the US later this year, “creating jobs domestically, improving quality control, and reducing dependence on foreign supply chains.”
The company describes this as a “relaunch” of the phone, but the hardware remains seemingly identical: a four-year-old MediaTek Dimensity 1200 chipset, 6.67-inch OLED display, 8GB RAM, and a triple rear camera led by a 108-megapixel main lens.
The price remains the same, too: $989, only $10 cheaper than an iPhone 16 Pro or Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus. That includes the first year of a subscription to Unplugged’s “privacy service,” which is then $12.99 per month or $129.99 per year, and includes a VPN, antivirus, encrypted messaging, and cloud photo storage.
The phone runs on UnpluggedOS, an Android fork that doesn’t include Google Mobile Services. It comes with a suite of privacy-centric features like a built-in firewall, a “no-logs” VPN, a dedicated Privacy Center app for managing your data, and, most interestingly, a hardware switch that “physically disables circuits” to entirely cut the phone’s power when it’s switched off. All these features were on the original phone, but Unplugged says that the OS, which used to be called LibertOS, has been “refreshed” with a“more intuitive UI, faster performance, and deeper privacy customization.”
When I asked for more details on those manufacturing plans, I was told that the phones are currently made in Indonesia, which is where non-US models will continue to be manufactured — though the phone is currently only available to buy in the US and Canada. Unplugged says it will eventually “hand-assemble” its US models domestically, including testing and quality assurance, though it admits that components will still be sourced from abroad.
Privacy-centric phones aren’t new. John McAfee announced his own “hack-proof” phone in 2017, the likes of the Freedom Phone have capitalized on American patriotism to sell “free speech” phones, and /e/OS and GrapheneOS are open-source alternatives that emphasize efforts to keep your data out of the hands of tech giants like Google. One phone, Anom, was even an FBI sting operation, created to surveil the very users it claimed to protect.
Unplugged has walked back the most strident claims that it made in its early days, avoiding the claim to be “impenetrable” that MIT Technology Review found in an early pitch deck for the company, or its promise of “government-grade encryption.” Christoph Hebeisen, director of security intelligence research at mobile security firm Lookout, described those to me as “definitely an overstatement” and “essentially meaningless,” respectively, so it’s for the best that Unplugged’s current claims are more modest. He still voiced caution though, warning that any independent phone company comes with risks.
“Smaller companies are unlikely to match the scale of the development and security teams larger players such as Google or Samsung have at their disposal, and as such, discovery and fixing of vulnerabilities can be slower,” Hebeisen explains. “In addition, a buy-out of the company or other major change could change their approach/attitude towards privacy or security in the future.”
That was a sentiment echoed by Nicholas Weaver, a networking researcher at the International Computer Science Institute, who suggested those worried about privacy are generally better off sticking to the major players. “If I need a really secure device it is going to be an iPhone, running Signal, with Lockdown Mode enabled and all cloud synchronization disabled,” he says.
The UP Phone does offer features that an iPhone won’t give you, at least not out of the box. Hebeisen acknowledges that the kill switch is “not relevant for most users” but could be useful for “highly exposed users whose potential adversaries include nation states.” He also suggests the built-in firewall offers “definite privacy and some security benefits,” while the centralized privacy settings could encourage users to be more privacy conscious.
But there’s also reason to be skeptical of Unplugged itself. Browse Reddit and you’ll find plenty of posts accusing the UP Phone of being a “honey pot,” just like Anom. Meanwhile, the makers of GrapheneOS took to their own forum earlier this year to call the UP Phone’s first iteration “a clear cut scam.”
“It’s missing a bunch of basic hardware, firmware and software security features,” Graphene’s devs argue. “It lags at least a year behind on Android releases and significantly behind on backported security patches. It will almost certainly begin falling much further behind and won’t receive proper long term support.”
“They’re paying for partnerships to promote their product with a focus on marketing it to conservative Americans based on political ties and partnerships with podcasts, etc. rather than having any substance behind it. It’s a blatant scam and they’re completely ripping those people off while putting them at risk. Their devices lack basic defenses against data extraction and exploitation. They’re far worse than using an iPhone rather than better.” We’ve asked Unplugged for comment on Graphene’s claims.
That worry about “political ties” points to one problem that Unplugged can’t shake: Erik Prince. You won’t find the Blackwater founder and Trump donor’s name on the website, with Unplugged more keen to promote its new CEO, Joe Weil, who previously led a special projects team at Apple.
But cofounder Prince isn’t too far away. He promotes the UP Phone on every episode of his podcast, Off Leash with Erik Prince, and has discussed it on The Tucker Carlson Show and elsewhere. He once even claimed that the phone could have prevented Hamas’s attack on October 7th, 2023. Rightly or wrongly, it’s partly because of his involvement that so many are suspicious of Unplugged’s motives. Prince has been the face of Unplugged since it launched, and how much you trust the company to preserve your privacy might come down to how much you trust Prince and his politics.
“Security products depend on both engineering and the folks behind them,” Weaver argues. “I can’t evaluate their engineering but, personally, I wouldn’t trust Erik Prince or anyone he might hire to guard a lemonade stand.”
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