Travellers in, and travelling through London leave 10,000 mobile phones behind a month!
London Taxi Pile-up of gadgets (Photo thanks to robhawkes)
But adding to that another 1,000 other gadgets (including iPods, laps and USB sticks) a month, it’s quite a bit (These stats are from licensed London cabs). The quaintly rises even higher in the run-up to Christmas, as passengers battle to get out with multiple shopping bags.
Steve McMenara, a spokesman for TAXI, a magazine published by the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, said “It’s a known fact that this is the worst time of year for forgetting `property’ at the back of cabs, but especially mobile phones and laptops as they slip onto the floor or get forgotten on the seats as passengers rush onto their next destination with their hands full. More people travel into London to buy their Xmas presents during this period who are not regular cab users, they hop a cab to get back to their train stations – and it’s always about an hour later we get a panicked call on their mobile phones asking for them to be returned”.
The survey which is sponsored by security firm Credant Technologies advices the shoppers and travels to password protect, or better to this, encrypt the data on their mobile devices.
Sean Glynn, vice president with Credant Technologies, said “Protecting data on mobile phones is becoming increasingly important with the growing use of high-capacity smartphones, which are capable of holding sensitive contact files and emails. The data held on such phones is ripe for exploitation by ID fraudsters to further bank fraud or other scams.”
thetechangel.com would strongly advise that users get into the habit of backing-up their mobile data, especially laptop users as a fallback option in the event of loss or damage.
Further to this, users are also reminded that sometimes the simplest things are the best: put a stick on the back of the phone or laptop with their name and contact number on. If you want to increase your chances of getting your hardware back also offer details of a reward if the item is found and returned back to you.
Sean also went on to say “It used to be small items like brollies and briefcases stuffed full of boring office papers. Now it’s laptops, smartphones and thumb drives, all chock-full of valuable information to an identity thief”.
