John McAfee is working on a ‘hack-proof’ smartphone called the McAfee Privacy Phone

John McAfee in an interview with Newsweek revealed a smartphone he called a “truly private smartphone”. McAfee showed off an Android phone called the McAfee Privacy Phone, which he said was the “most hack-proof phone” ever created.

In the interview the colourful software guru also revealed that the secure Android smartphone would be priced at $1,100 (roughly Rs 70,000). The smartphone was reportedly built in partnership with a cybersecurity firm called MGT.

The device will feature physical switches, ones that will give owners the freedom to physically disconnect the battery, antennas for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and geolocation. These switches would also let users disconnect the camera and the microphone, so that you can be sure that your device is not tracking you in any way possible. The device will be able to identify and refuse to connect to any other IMSI catcher device and will also feature a web search anonymizer.

While software is key to smartphone security. Hardware switches that physically disconnect components on a smartphone does sound like a cool idea.

But at the end of the day, McAfee’s smartphone does run Android, this means it is going to be as vulnerable as any other device in the market today. But let’s wait and see how this one turns out as many have attempted to pull of a secure smartphone in the past, but have eventually failed to deliver a unicorn that will actually make it to the masses.