Stolen cell phones in Britain can now scream thieves into embarrassment with added security features revealed on Monday.

British communications management provider Remote XT unveiled a security feature, named after the company, that sets off a screaming noise when the user reports the mobile device stolen. The stolen phones are also instantly disabled, once reported stolen, even if the SIM card is removed. The only way to stop the screaming sound is to take out the battery.

“By making the mobiles unusable to anyone but the rightful owner, the phones become worthless and we’ll see the market for stolen handsets stamped out once and for all,” said Mark Whiteman, managing director and founder of Remote XT, in a statement.

In a 2002 survey by the U.K.’s Home Office, mobile phone crime was seen to rise 190 percent since 1995 and comprised 28 percent of all robberies in the United Kingdom, opposed to 8 percent in 1999.

Synchronica revealed similar technology in the U.K. in August with their Mobile Manager. With Mobile Manager, however, only Windows-based mobile units could deliver the high-pitched scream when lost or stolen.

Remote XT offers users the joy of knowing a thief will be spotted and humiliated, and gives users the ability to back up their data to transfer to a new phone, including emails, text messages, ringtones, MP3 files, and pictures. The service is £9.99 ($18.84) a month or £1,198.99 ($2,260.86) per year.

Phone Value

As annoying and costly as it may be to lose a mobile device, the device itself is usually not worth £1,198.99.

Forty-eight percent of those who lose their cell phones are under 18 years old, said the same Home Office survey. With such a price tag, the more likely Remote XT target audience is senior executives and those who carry confidential information on their mobile device, like lawyers, accountants, and chief executive officers. Most of those people carry this kind of information on a memory card on their phone, not on the actual phone itself.

Remote XT will not solve the real problems those people face when they lose their mobile device.

“For a lot of people, losing a base-level handset, the biggest problem is losing their contact list; maybe calendaring information,” said service director Clive Longbottom at U.K. analyst firm Quocirca. “Ten pounds a month to give the thief a red face is probably not worth it.”

Getting Smart About Phones

Smartphones are already equipped with an online backup of a user’s data and nearly all mobile operators cancel the phone when you report it stolen. The real problem is not stolen mobile phones, but stolen memory cards, added Mr. Longbottom.

“The amount of information stored on those cards is phenomenal.”

While many mobile users enable a personal identification number (PIN) to use the phone itself, many leave the memory card without a PIN number, said Mr. Longbottom. The memory card can then be extracted from the stolen phone and easily read through a separate reader. Buying Remote XT will not protect the memory card from being extracted or read.

By simply putting a PIN number on the memory card, most thieves will abandon trying to read the information.

In a survey earlier this year, Quocirca asked 2,035 IT professionals about the biggest mobile security threat and policies for their companies. Eighty percent of the IT professionals said the ordinary worker at the company was their main threat from them misplacing or losing the device and not setting up proper security on it. And of those companies with a wide deployment of mobile devices throughout the company, 20 percent admitted to failing to implement effective security measures.

Contact the writer:Editorial@RedHerring.com

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