Android phones approved for US military use

Samsung phones that run a secure version of Android have been approved by the US Department of Defense.

The approval is the first part of a strategy to allow soldiers to use many types of devices, as it stands Blackberry are the only models to meet the security requirements of the US service personnel.

This strategy is aimed at allowing soldiers to use different types of devices during their tours of duty, specifically letting them use devices that are suited to the different situations they will be in.

The plan hopes to have more than doubled the amount of secure mobile devices being used by US service personnel by 2014. To ensure the security of the growing amount of devices being used, a secure system will be built with the purpose of managing all of the devices and their associated app stores.

Department of Defense spokesman, Lt Col Damien Pickart, said: ‘The US DoD has about 600,000 smartphone users, about 470,000 of whom are using Blackberry handsets. The remainder was split between people using both Google Android and Apple phones in a series of trials to assess whether the devices could be used securely.’

Samsung devices are the first to get approval to be used because of the development of a high security Android operating system called Knox. Other Android devices and Apple products are expected to be approved by the end of this month.