British government disputes reports that it rejected BlackBerry 10 for security reasons

BB10 'likely to represent viable solution,' UK security group says in response to Guardian story

A British government security group said Wednesday said it hasn't yet evaluated the security of BlackBerry 10 devices such as the Z10.

The UK Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG) statement was issued following a report Tuesday in the Guardian newspaper that it had rejected the BB10 and its Balance software over security worries.

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"We are continuing to work closely with CESG on the approval of BlackBerry 10 and we're confident that BlackBerry 10 will only strengthen our position as the mobile solution of choice for the U.K. government."

The Z10 has been on sale in the UK since last month and goes on sale in the U.S. on Friday friom AT&T and a week later from Verizon Wireless.

T-Mobile has said it is fulfilling orders for the Z10 from businesses, while Sprint said it will carry the Z10's cousin, the qwerty Q10, at a future date.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen, or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.

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