Keep your phone safe: Tips to prevent theft and protect your data

On October 29, 2024By Karl

Phones house most of our digital lives, such as emails, social media and bank accounts, photos, instant messages and more; If they are stolen or lost, this can cause major disruption beyond the loss of a device.

In some places, phone thefts have increased so much that thieves on electric bikes are snatching phones from pedestrians, stealing them from restaurant tables or pickpocketing them on the subway.

In Britain, where 200 phones are stolen every day through “doorjacking”, the government has vowed to crack down on the crime and is meeting with technology companies and device manufacturers to find solutions.

Here are the steps you can take before and after your phone is lost:

There are things you can do to make it less painful if your phone is stolen. Some of these features are more technical in nature, so people often overlook them.

Lock it as much as you can. At least a passcode or biometric scan is required to unlock the device. You can also add similar requirements to important individual applications such as your banking account, WhatsApp or Signal to protect your finances or chats from thieves.

Also enable Find My Device, available for both iOS and Android. Samsung also offers its own service called SmartThings Find.

You’ll probably have a lot of precious photos saved in your camera roll. It’s a good idea to back them up along with contacts, calendar items, and other files. Google and Apple offer cloud-based backup services, but their free versions have limited storage. You can also back up your files to an external hard drive, memory card or laptop.

Some police forces and phone companies recommend turning off message previews, which prevents thieves trying to break into your accounts from seeing reset or sign-in codes when the phone is locked. To do this on an iPhone, for example, go to the Notifications section of your settings menu and tap Show Previews. You can also scroll down the app list to turn off previews for individual apps but leave them on for less risky apps like news or weather.

The latest iOS and Android updates include a number of new functions designed to make thefts less attractive.

iPhone users can turn on Stolen Device Protection, which makes it much harder for phone thieves to access basic functions and settings. Many thieves will want to wipe and reset the data so they can resell it, but they will need a facial or fingerprint scan to do this with this feature turned on. Apple also recently updated its “activation lock” feature to make it harder for thieves to sell parts for stolen phones.

Meanwhile, Android phones can now use artificial intelligence to detect motion that indicates someone has snatched it from your hand and sped away on foot or bike, and then immediately lock the screen. There is also a feature called Private Spaces that allows you to hide sensitive files on your phone.

Make a note of your phone’s serial number, also known as the IMEI number. If eventually recovered, it can connect you to the phone. Call by typing (asterisk)#06# on your phone’s keypad. If you’ve already lost your phone, you can find it in other places, like the box it came in.

If you are unlucky enough to have your phone stolen, notify the police. If you have a policy that covers the device, call your insurance company. Notify your phone company so they can deactivate your number and issue you a new SIM card or eSIM. Notify your bank so they can be alert for suspicious transactions.

Try to locate your phone using the Find My Device feature. For iPhones, go to iCloud.com/find from a web browser; Android users should go to www.google.com/android/find. Samsung also has its own service for Galaxy phones.

These services will show your phone’s current or last known location on a map; This is also useful if you’ve lost track of it anywhere in the house. Apple says that even if a phone can’t connect to the internet or is turned off, AirTags can use Bluetooth to ping any nearby Apple device using the same network behind its tracking devices. Google says newer Pixel phones can be positioned for “several hours” after being turned off using similar technology.

You can make the phone make a sound even if it is on silent. You can also put the phone into lost mode, which locks it and displays a message and contact information on the screen to anyone who finds it. Lost mode on iOS also suspends all Apple Pay cards and passes.

If the device appears on the map in an unfamiliar place and you suspect it has been stolen, experts say it is better to notify the police rather than trying to get it back yourself.

“Confronting a thief alone is not recommended,” says cybersecurity firm Norton.

If you can’t find your phone, there are a few last steps you need to take.

Sign out of all your accounts accessible on the phone, and then remove it from your list of trusted devices you use to receive multi-factor authentication codes; but make sure you can receive these codes from somewhere else, like email.

Then, as a last resort, you can remotely wipe the phone to eliminate any chance of any data falling into the wrong hands. But remember: Apple says that if the iPhone is offline, the remote wipe will only happen when it comes back online. However, if you find the phone before it is erased, you can cancel the request.

Google warns that SD memory cards inserted into Android phones may not be erased remotely. After the phone is erased it doesn’t show up to find my device.