Wouldn’t it be great if someone designed a smartphone capable of protecting your email, masking your phone calls and stopping anyone from tracing your movements? Well, if the makers of a new smartphone called “Blackphone” are to be believed, that device now exists.

The last year has seen dozens of shocking revelations which shows the NSA possesses the capability to track and snoop on just about any digital device known to man. As such, it’s little surprise that growing numbers of businesses and individuals might want to do something to protect their privacy. And now, to meet this demand, two companies have teamed up to launch a smartphone that they claim is able to do just that.

The “Blackphone” apparently runs a security-oriented version of the Android operating system, known as PrivatOS. According to its designers, the Blackphone is able to make totally secure phone calls, send SMS messages and even video calls that are guaranteed to be free from the NSA’s dragnet.

Blackphone is the brain-child of SilentCircle founder Phil Zimmerman, and Geeksphone, a Spanish startup that was among the first to build phones running the Firefox OS. You might have heard of Zimmerman before – his company, SilentCircle, has developed a number of communication encryption products, including encrypted phone calls, text messages and video conferencing. Previously, it used to operate a secure email service – but this was shut down last year after the NSA served it with a gag order and made it the subject of an investigation.

In press release announcing the Blackphone project, Zimmermann noted that the phone will offer everything users come to expect from a high-end smartphone, but with increased privacy and security options.

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

“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.”

Blackphone’s creators don’t go into much detail about how they’re planning to keep the NSA, but with Silent Circle’s expertise on hand, it should be possible for it to incorporate a number of its current encryption products into the Android operating systm.

If nothing else, the Blackphone is an interesting experiment. Should it be capable of making headway with customers who prioritize privacy other functionality, it’s not hard to see other bigger vendors following suit with security phones of their own.

For those hoping for a first look at the Blackphone, the device will reportedly go on display at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, next month. Following that, the devices should be available to pre-order from next month. At the moment we don’t have any details on how much the Blackphone might cost.