For as long as mobile phones have been in common use, there has been a huge problem with phones being stolen. While the technology that makes it harder for thieves to unlock and resell stolen phones has developed consistently over time, surprisingly, rather than decreasing, mobile phone theft has increased by a huge 25 per cent over the last three years. This is generally because there is a whole ‘industry’ around unlocking and reselling stolen mobiles, especially top end models like iPhones, and it is worth enough to the criminals involved in it that they spend a lot of time and effort working out ways around security features.
What Do Thieves Do with a Stolen iPhone to Make it Sellable?
When an iPhone is stolen, the two things a person would need to do to be able to resell it would be to disable the ‘Find My Phone’ feature, and to erase the phone’s data. Of course, before erasing all that data they are likely to have had a good nose around your phone to see if there is anything interesting or valuable in any of your emails, your social media accounts, your contact list or your apps. You can log out of most social networks and email accounts remotely from your computer and change passwords if you can realise your phone is missing and do this in time, and cloud services offered by Apple can help with a lot of other stuff. But, if your thief is able to switch off ‘Find My Phone’ and clear your iPhone, they have a valuable asset they can sell on.
With the latest iPhone, the iPhone 5S, Apple have aimed to address this issue, and have also added a cool extra security feature they think users will love:
Basic Additional Security
On the iPhone 5S, and in fact any older iPhone running iOS 7, the user will have to enter their basic Apple credentials (i.e. their Apple ID and password) to be able to turn off ‘Find My Phone’ and to erase the phone’s contents. This seems like quite a simple thing that probably should have been included all along, because the only reasons you would ever want to turn off the ‘Find My Phone’ feature or wipe your iPhone would generally be if you wanted to sell it or give it to someone – whether legitimately as its owner or because you had stolen it – it’s not like these are features you are turning on and off every day and would be annoyed at having to enter your details for. Whether this was an oversight in previous iOS versions or there was a reason why it wasn’t included we’ll probably never know, but it is definitely good news that it is here!
Fingerprint Scanning
As well as beefing up the security on ‘Find My Phone’ and clearing your phone’s data, Apple have added a fingerprint scanner to the new model. This is not done via the touchscreen but via the home button, which contains a fingerprint reader. This sort of thing has existed on laptops for a long time, but never before on a phone and never in the way Apple have implemented it. Just as they aimed to beat previous, untrustworthy voice recognition software with Siri, they have tried to make a fingerprint scanner users will not find frustrating and disable, and which will offer people an added level of security for all kinds of apps. One great thing they have done, which is in many ways unlike Apple who like to have everything talk to their servers all the time, is ensure that the biometric data about your finger is held locally on the phone and nowhere else, meaning there isn’t that worrying risk of a security leak of your fingerprint. The phone will have to be on the market for a while before it can be judged how well this technology works, but so far, things seem promising.
Will People Still Steal Them?
While these measures may make things hard for thieves who have got themselves an iPhone 5S or a phone with iOS 7 on it, this may not deter the theft in the first place. Most thefts are opportunist and the thief may not have time to check the model before lifting it, or be aware of how hard these phones are to unlock. For this reason, it is best to insure your iPhone with specialist phone insurance from a company like uk.protectyourbubble.com so if your iPhone is stolen, you can get a replacement fast and without having to shell out the rather large ticket price a second time! The new features are good, but they won’t always prevent a thief from trying to steal your phone.
