Verizon’s Voice Cypher Encrypted Calling App Comes With A Catch

With the recent spate of hacks and reports of government listening in on our calls, reading our emails, messages, and so on, we’re sure there is an increasing amount of users out there who are looking to secure their privacy as much as possible. Well the good news is that Verizon has recently announced a new service called Voice Cypher.

This is thanks to their partnership with Cellcrypt which will aim to provide end-to-end “military grade” encryption for government and enterprise users who might require such high security. The service will operate over WiFi and Verizon’s network through a special mobile app designed for iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? However there is a catch and that catch is that the keys needed to decrypt your information will be made available to law enforcement agencies, but only if and when they can demonstrate that there is a reason to need these keys. This is the complete opposite of what Apple and Google have done which is to give the keys to the user themselves, a move that has frustrated law enforcement officials to no end.

That being said, Cellcrypt’s VP for North America said that this does not make it any less secure. We guess if your main concern is against hackers looking to steal private and sensitive information, then this could be one way to go about protecting yourself. However if you’re adamant that no one else should hold the keys to your encrypted data, save for yourself, then you’ll probably want to look elsewhere.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Security, Verizon