Broadband | 2026-10-22
Europe Is Making Phones Again as Jolla’s Finnish-Built Smartphone Is Shipping — and Sweden’s Public Safety Sector Is Its First Public Safety Market
Finnish mobile technology company Jolla, together with Stockholm-based partner CivSec AB, is presenting the Jolla Phone at National Defence Expo in Älvsjö, Sweden, as the foundation for European-controlled critical communications. Running Jolla’s Linux-based Sailfish OS, the only European mobile operating system, and assembled in Finland, the device is being positioned for public safety, critical communications, national defence and total civil safety organisations in Sweden, which becomes the phone’s first enterprise market.
The initiative responds to a long-standing structural dependency in European mobile technology. Operating systems used across the continent have largely originated in the United States and hardware in Asia, leaving European police, rescue services and defence organisations equipped with devices over which they hold limited ultimate control. Jolla started production of the Jolla Phone in 2026, with the full mobile operating system stack assembled in Finland, and the first units are already in customers’ hands across Europe.
Sailfish OS has been developed in Finland by Jolla since 2011 and is one of only four commercial-grade mobile operating systems worldwide, alongside Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and Huawei’s HarmonyOS. Final assembly of the Jolla Phone takes place in Salo, Finland, the historic home of Nokia’s phone manufacturing. More than 15,000 units were pre-sold ahead of the July 2026 launch, and deliveries are under way.
Through the partnership with CivSec AB, a trusted partner to the Swedish public safety sector with established expertise in local requirements, procurement practices and regulation, the solution is offered as a terminal layer in which the operating system, updates and assembly all remain within the European Union. According to the companies, the solution is ready to pilot with the existing device rather than representing a future roadmap.
“This year Jolla started making phones in Finland again, and they are shipping. When the device in a first responder’s pocket runs on an operating system built in Finland you know who you are dealing with. No advertising company, no foreign government in the chain,” said Sami Pienimäki, CEO & Co-founder of Jolla. “We build the technology. CivSec knows the Swedish market and its rules. That is what makes this ready to start piloting and deploy, not something to evaluate for another two years.”
“Our customers have asked for years whether a European alternative really exists. Now we can put one on the table: a Linux-based operating system from Finland, even with a phone assembled in Finland, and a partner who understands Swedish regulation and procurement,” said Roger Holfeldt, CEO, CivSec AB.
Sovereignty at the Device Level
For organisations operating in public safety, critical communications, national defence and total civil safety, questions surrounding device trustworthiness have become increasingly concrete: who controls the operating system, where its updates originate, and what data leaves the device without the user’s knowledge. As Europe assesses which elements of its critical infrastructure rely on technology that could be disabled from outside the continent, Jolla positions Sailfish OS and the Jolla Phone as an exception that cannot be switched off by any party outside Europe.
Sailfish OS builds on the European mobile engineering tradition that originated at Nokia, carrying forward the MeeGo lineage. The company states that the platform contains no built-in Big Tech data collection and has no dependency on a foreign platform owner for security updates or continued support, giving organisations full control over the software stack running on their devices.
The hardware follows the same principle. The Jolla Phone features a user-configurable hardware privacy switch capable of disabling functions such as location, camera and microphone, with a physical position the user can both feel and see. The device also supports interchangeable smart covers, known as The Other Half, which the phone recognises on attachment and which can lock the handset into a single defined role, such as a work profile or a restricted field device.
CivSec AB contributes the market knowledge, regulatory understanding and deployment capability required by Swedish public safety organisations, supporting projects from requirements definition through to rollout.
Target Segments
The solution addresses four segments of the Swedish market: public safety, including police, rescue and emergency services; critical communications, covering organisations whose communications must remain operational when other systems fail; national defence, where software origin is treated as a security matter; and total civil safety, Sweden’s whole-of-society preparedness model in which public agencies, municipalities and private operators share responsibility.
Availability
The Jolla Phone is available for piloting to Swedish public safety organisations through CivSec AB. Consumer orders can be placed at jolla.com/phone.
