Londoners lose mobiles in cabs en masse

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Despite a flurry of high-profile data loss cases in the private and public sector recently, the average black cab passenger still seem as forgetful as ever when it comes to looking after their mobile phone.

So claims a survey released this week by Credant Technologies, which found a staggering 55,843 mobile phones (or almost three per taxi) and 6,193 other handheld devices such as laptops, iPods and memory sticks had been left in London black cabs in the last six months.

The survey was carried out among 300 of London’s licensed taxi drivers and extrapolated among the total number of licensed taxi cabs in London, which is 21,729 according to the Public Carriage Office in September 2008.

Although the number lost seems high the fact that high-profile data losses have involved the likes of memory sticks being found on the floor of a night club only reinforces a perception that people aren’t taking enough care of their mobile devices.

As many of these devices now have the capacity to store as many as 10,000 Word documents, 11,000 pictures, 500,000 contact details or 1.1 million emails, the survey also highlights how easy it would be for any sensitive data they held to fall into the wrong hands.

“It is easy to forget things when you’re travelling – in the old days it used to be small items like umbrellas, now it’s mobile phones and other devices,” said Michael Callahan, Credant Technologies’ chief marketing officer. “It’s only when you’ve lost a mobile device containing all your friends, family and business contacts or your company’s data, that you really understand how disastrous it can be.”

But the security implications could be vast, particularly if the device contains sensitive work data too. “If it gets into the wrong hands of a criminal, hacker or opportunist losing your mobile device can have serious implications,” added Callahan.

He said the best advice would be to always encrypt mobile device data and password protect it to stop it ever being accessed by anyone else.

And, although 80 per cent of cabbies claimed to have reunited the lost devices with their owners, there’s no guarantee the data it contained had not been compromised while lost.

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