David Cameron: I can manage the country on my BlackBerry

UK prime minister confesses reliance on BlackBerry smartphone for remotely running the government while on holiday. David Cameron has confessed his reliance on his BlackBerry smartphone, despite the possibility that the company will cease making phones.


The prime minister said that he could run government remotely from his smartphone, despite being on holiday.


“Wherever I am in the world I am always within a few feet of a BlackBerry and an ability to manage things should they need to be managed,” he said on Monday. “And indeed as I have done on I think almost every holiday that I have enjoyed over the last few years.”


Cameron is a long-time BlackBerry user because of the perceived security of the smartphone, which passes all data and through secure servers and has on-device encryption.


However, BlackBerry’s chief executive, John Chen, warned in April that the company may exit the handset business to concentrate on its enterprise server business, if he is not able to turn around the phone business’s profits.


iPads banned


Cameron tested a real-time economic data app on iPads in 2012, which gave him instant access to GDP, bank lending, jobs and property prices plus polling data and Twitter feeds. The app, hosted by the Government Digital Services inside the Cabinet Office was described as the “No 10 Dashboard.”


Apple’s iPad was later banned from Cabinet meetings over fears that foreign intelligence agencies could bug the tablet, smartphones and other connected devices.


Secure communications


BlackBerry bought the German security firm Secusmart in July to bolster its security credentials and head the company in the direction of highly secure mobile communications.


“The acquisition of Secusmart underscores our focus on addressing growing security costs and threats ranging from individual privacy to national security,” Chen said at the time.


BlackBerry had partnered with Secusmart before, providing encrypted data and voice calls to the German Federal Office for Information Security, with Chancellor Angela Merkel said to be a user of a modified BlackBerry Z10.


The guardian.com