New Technologies Unveiled to Help Protect Mobile Phone Users From Crime

New Technologies Unveiled to Help Protect Mobile Phone Users From Crime

Three new design innovations to tackle mobile phone crime, including a device that locks a phone and alerts the owner if it is taken away from them, have been unveiled today.

The prototypes were developed by teams of designers and technology experts as part of the Mobile Phone Security Challenge, an initiative from the Home Office Design and Technology Alliance and the Design Council, with support and funding from the Technology Strategy Board.

The aim of the challenge was to protect mobile phone users from crimes such as mobile phone identity fraud, which rose by over 70% in 2009, to make phones more secure and to prevent unauthorised use of mobiles for electronic "contactless" payments, soon to be become widespread in the UK.

The Solutions

i migo

i-migo - a small device which the user keeps about their person. The i-migo sounds an alert and locks the handset if it is taken out of a set range - either through theft or loss. The i-migo also provides automated backup of important data using Bluetooth technology.

Tie
Tie 02

The tie solution - this electronically matches a handset to a SIM card and protects data stored on the handset with a password and encryption. If stolen, the handset cannot be used with another SIM and data such as saved passwords, browsed websites, and contacts cannot be accessed by criminals, who can use it to defraud victims, by hacking into online bank accounts.

Touchsafe

TouchSafe - aimed at making "M-Commerce" transactions more secure by using a small card worn or carried by the user, who discreetly touches the phone to the card to enable the transaction. Touch Safe uses the same Near Field Communication (NFC) technology currently used by the Oyster travel card.

The three working prototypes will be on display from the 15 to 18 February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the mobile industry's annual trade show. The Design and Technology Alliance and the Design Council will be calling for the industry to protect their customers by adopting these innovative security technologies.

"It's about thinking smarter than criminals," said David Kester, Alliance member and Chief Executive, Design Council. "Designers have provided innovations that are one step ahead; new phones are still desirable to consumers but they're useless to criminals if they're equipped with these new concepts. The technology behind each of these ideas provides UK companies with promising business opportunities."

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. The introduction of Chip and PIN has helped reduce fraud on lost or stolen cards to its lowest total since the industry began collating fraud loss figures in 1991.

Design Council

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