Fairphone uses Qualcomm snapdragon chips but they don't use chips made for mobile phones, it's chips for industrial use they buy, so the secure element might be missing. The reason is: they are supported for way longer which allows fairphone such long update periods. The shortlist of other phonemakers who can do the same are the ones who design their own chips: Google, Samsung, Apple.
Really interesting!
Here is the product page of the chip in Fairphone's 5th phone:
Qualcomm does list this chip for enterprise grade use and updates for multiple years to come on android. The block diagram has a box labelled security. If the chip was as insecure as people claim, it couldn't be used for biometrics much, if at all.
Fairphone uses Qualcomm snapdragon chips but they don't use chips made for mobile phones, it's chips for industrial use they buy, so the secure element might be missing. The reason is: they are supported for way longer which allows fairphone such long update periods. The shortlist of other phonemakers who can do the same are the ones who design their own chips: Google, Samsung, Apple.
Really interesting!
Here is the product page of the chip in Fairphone's 5th phone:
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/internet-of-things/industrial/building-enterprise/qcm6490#Overview
Qualcomm does list this chip for enterprise grade use and updates for multiple years to come on android. The block diagram has a box labelled security. If the chip was as insecure as people claim, it couldn't be used for biometrics much, if at all.