Design Council competition looks for secure mobiles

The Design Council has launched a competition this week to help develop new ways of securing phones against crime.

The competition, dubbed “The Mobile Phone Security Challenge,” offers £400,000 to tech experts or designers to develop the new ideas.

It is part of an initiative from the Home Office called “Design out Crime” and is supported by the Technology Strategy Board.

David Kester, chief executive of the Design Council, said: “21st century society loves its gadgets but the cleverer and cooler we make our products, the more they expose us and our children to serious crime such as mugging, identity theft and bank fraud.”

“That’s why we are calling on our great well-spring of designers, technologists and manufacturers to help us all get ahead of the next crime wave and be more creative than the criminals.”

The focus of the designs should be to make mobile handsets and the data secured on them more difficult to steal. Also, the Design Council wants transactions via mobiles to be more secure and protected from fraud.

Home Office Minister Alan Campbell said: “The rapidly developing nature of mobile technology means we must continue to work together to eliminate any future opportunities for criminals to profit from mobile phone theft.”

“It is vital that as new technologies are developed key safeguards are incorporated at the drawing board stage. The Design and Technology Alliance and competitions like this are a key part of the government’s drive for a greater emphasis on designing out crime.”

Entrants have until the 22 May to submit their applications, with a shortlist of the finalists to be released on 29 June.

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