Make the privacy SHIFT happen with the new Murena SHIFTphone 8 and its hardware kill switch

Posted on 15 Sep 2025 |

According to the UN, every year, about 50 million tons of electronic waste are generated worldwide. A large part of it comes from short-lived smartphones. Although we are more or less aware of this problem, we struggle to change our habits.

Sustainable smartphones as the new normal

To make change happen, someone has to start it. So why not begin by selecting your smartphone as carefully as you would choose your car? You wouldn’t simply replace it just because the button to scroll down the window is broken, right?

The demand for repairable smartphones is steadily growing, and at Murena, we firmly believe that all smartphones should be modular and easy to repair. That’s why we carefully select hardware partners who share this vision. SHIFT is a great example of how sustainable innovation can take many forms.

SHIFT creates sustainable products designed for a long-term, empowering users to repair their devices themselves. If something breaks, you can open the device for repair without voiding the warranty. When you no longer use the phone, you can send it back to receive a refund plus its residual value. SHIFT then refurbishes the devices and sells them as “second life” products or uses the still-working modules.

As SHIFT’s CEO, Carsten Waldeck, said – he and his brother Samuel founded SHIFTphone to bring a little more light into a world that can sometimes feel quite dark. So when they share their slogan, “Sustainable technology. With love. From Germany.”– they mean it.

Cam and mic off – Privacy on: Meet the Murena SHIFTphone 8 with its privacy kill switch

Meet the result of our collaboration with SHIFT: The new Murena SHIFTphone 8 runs on privacy-focused /e/OS and has an extra privacy-tool: The hardware kill switch.

This hardware kill switch physically severs the electronic connection to the mic and camera, ensuring they’re completely deactivated. Unlike software-based solutions, it adds an uncompromising physical layer of security. To activate the hardware kill switch, simply remove the back cover and use a small tool like a needle or paperclip.

Combined with the SHIFTphone 8s fully modular design (18 user-replaceable modules) and IP66 water resistance, it’s built for those who demand control over their device and their data.

Its dual 50MP camera with pixel-binning delivers sharp, low-light photos and 4K video – without ever compromising your privacy. Thanks to the hardware kill switch, you decide when the camera is active, ensuring no unwanted access.

Focusing on the users’ privacy with transparency

At Murena, our main priority is to protect users from permanent personal data collection. As Murena’s founder and CEO Gaël Duval says: “I knew I had to break free from the Big Techs’ industrial data surveillance – and quickly realized I wasn’t the only one.”

He was right: by 2025, nearly 100,000 people – primarily in Western countries – are using /e/OS to protect their private data from Big Tech surveillance. /e/OS is an open source operating system with Advanced Privacy features to prevent tracking and protect your data which is available for free on over 200 different Android devices.

To make it even easier for you to use an operating system without Google, Murena provides smartphones and tablets that already run on /e/OS.

Murena gives you a real choice: The choice to keep your data safe from Big Tech – but also the choice to use mainstream apps, if you do wish to.

And now, together with SHIFT, we give you another choice: The choice to buy a sustainable smartphone, that protects not only the environment, but also your personal data – on a hardware level. It is available now in European Union, UK, Switzerland and New Zealand.

“Our collaboration with SHIFT is a big step for European tech sovereignty. The Murena SHIFTphone 8 combines sustainability, user repairability, and hardware-level privacy, proving that technology and ethics can go hand in hand.” (Gaël Duval, Murena founder and CEO)