Should you lock your cell phone?
This morning CTV had a brief story about how a woman’s stolen iPhone was recovered and how the thieves were arrested a few subway stops away. The story went on to talk about how consumers would be able to call in their IMEI and the phone would become “bricked” so criminals couldn’t use/sell it.
I’ve seen several similar reports in various news sources before. Sometimes I wonder if all this security is really helpful. What? Surely you jest Charles? Here’s the reasoning behind the thinking:
In the case of a physical attack or theft it seems like a sensible technology. The problem I have with the idea is lots of people lose their phones and think their phone has been stolen. In fact we see phones come in from organizations lost and found departments from time to time.
If we have a charger for the phone we attempt to charge the phone and return it to its owner. But that’s contingent on us being able to get into the phone and identify the owner.
Last month I was able to return a pretty nice Android phone to a student because he left his phone unlocked and I was able to identify him by the photo he’d took of his student card.
But we sometimes charge a phone only to discover it’s locked. There are a few phones that we can reset even with the lock enabled, but that wipes out the user’s information – not what we want to do! If I can I’d prefer we return phones to owners.
Bricking a phone only seems to make sense in situations where a phone contains really important information that needs to be private. The phone companies themselves really seem to be the main beneficiary of phone bricking, after all we’d need to buy a new phone to replace the bricked phone.
I also understand people who don’t want some stranger going through their cell phone contacts. So here’s an idea – make it possible to encrypt certain contacts, but leave others open (Apple if you use this you owe me big time).
Of course the real simple solution is just to leave your contact details on the back of your phone and make sure they’ll stand up to wear and tear (rain/heat/rubbing).
Consider that a dozen years ago cell phone users couldn’t lock their phones. It was all open for whomever had possession of a phone. We do a lot more with our phones these days, so it’s a hard call to say what the best course of action is. Lock or unlock, what’s your perspective?