Today sees the launch of a national search for designers in UK to develop new ways of securing mobile phones against thieves and fraudsters, as research shows that 80% of phones contain data which can be used by criminals to access bank accounts, steal identity, or sell on personal data.
The Mobile Phone Security Challenge is offering a total of £400,000 to designers and technology experts to come up with new ways of securing handsets, the data they contain, and their future use as electronic "wallets" when m-commerce technology is introduced in the UK.
The Challenge is part of Design out Crime, an initiative from the Home Office Design & Technology Alliance Against Crime and the Design Council. The Mobile Phone Security Challenge is supported by the Technology Strategy Board.
Applicants will submit a tender outlining how they will approach the challenge and identifying any relevant experience they may have. Once selected by a panel of experts, the teams will be allocated money for research and development from the £400,000 fund, and spend six months developing designs and working prototypes in one or more of three key areas:
- Making mobile phone handsets harder or less desirable to steal
- Making the data stored on mobile phones harder or less desirable to steal
- Making future m-commerce transactions secure and fraud proof
They will produce market-ready applications which may include hardware and software for handsets, new services and other innovations, which will be showcased and promoted by early 2010, with a view to their widespread and rapid take-up by the market.
A recent survey found that 80% of people carry information on their mobile phone handsets that could be used by criminals to commit fraud - and 16% keep their bank details saved on their phone, yet only 4 in 10 people currently lock their mobiles using a PIN. Such data includes website passwords, bookmarks, emails, personal security data and locations/addresses on map applications.
"This challenge is the result of work undertaken last year when we engaged young victims of crime, police, mobile industry experts and designers to understand current and future issues regarding mobile phone crime," said Sebastian Conran, chair of the Design & Technology Alliance Against Crime. "The Alliance has prioritised five areas and is working hard to deliver insights that the UK's design and technology sector can use to deliver innovative solutions to reduce the instances of crime and antisocial behaviour. This is one of the early results of our work - there's more to come."
"21st century society loves its gadgets but the cleverer and cooler we make our products, the more they expose us and our children to serious crime such as mugging, identity theft and bank fraud," added David Kester, Chief Executive of The Design Council. "That's why we are calling on our great well-spring of designers, technologists and manufacturers to help us all get ahead of the next crime wave and be more creative than the criminals.
I am particularly delighted to launch this mobile phone security challenge with the Technology Strategy Board. It is the first example of our new partnership which aims to harness the full potential of the UK's design and technology base for economic and public good. In this case, it's good news for industry, and even better news for tens of millions of honest mobile phone users."
Home Office Minister Alan Campbell commented: "We are committed to tackling and preventing crime in all forms. The rapidly developing nature of mobile technology means we must continue to work together to eliminate any future opportunities for criminals to profit from mobile phone theft. It is vital that as new technologies are developed key safeguards are incorporated at the drawing board stage.
The Design and Technology Alliance and competitions like this are a key part of the government's drive for a greater emphasis on designing out crime. By bringing together experts from industry and design we will continue to deliver innovative and practical solutions to real problems. We have already seen successes such as the introduction of chip and pin which has helped to reduce fraud on lost or stolen cards to its lowest total since the industry started collating fraud loss figures in 1991."
Previous advances in technology have led to unexpected new forms of crime; email heralded the phenomenon of "phishing", ATMs precipitated the new crime of "card catching" and online banking gave rise to "key logging", used by fraudsters to track the input of secret passwords and account numbers. However, there are also many examples of technology being applied successfully to reduce crime - for example, British Crime Survey figures show theft of vehicles has reduced by 51% since 1997 as a result of improved security being designed into the vehicle, and an evaluation of houses built to the ACPO Secured By Design (SBD) standards showed that these experience 26% less crime than non SBD houses, and residents fear of crime is lower.