The first time you lost your phone, how did you feel? It can be so depressing. The one thing that makes it so painful is our personal information stored inside the phone. Even if you have a backup somewhere, you don’t want the thief or stranger to pry into your privacy. Now, to avoid this from happening next time, I want to introduce you to a feature in your smartphone that can remotely wipe the information on your stolen phone. Different types of smartphones are covered below, if the Remote Wipe on Your Smartphone is not available on your device, you can also download it as an app:
iPhones:
As of the iPhone 3.0 software update, it’s a fairly simple process for users with a MobileMe account (requiring a yearly paid subscription) to locate their iPhone (or iPod touch) and securely wipe the phone’s data if they need to.
Android:
The Android platform does not come with remote wipe capabilities as a default feature, but there are 3rd party apps, like the highly regarded–and free–Mobile Defense app, that enable remote wipe. The Motorola Cliq, which runs a customized version of Android. Has a built-in ability to be remotely wiped by users. And other non-stock Android devices may have this feature built-in.
BlackBerry:
BlackBerry smartphones, being very enterprise-friendly devices. Have a specific policy that IT administrators can turn on to enable remote wiping of a BlackBerry to factory defaults. For individual users, third-party apps would be needed to enable remote wipe. You can, however, right now take steps to secure your BlackBerry via password protection and content protection.
Palm:
Like the BlackBerry, the Palm Pre allows IT administrators to initiate a remote wipe. Individual users can also perform a “remote erase” on their Palm Pre from their Palm Profile page on Palm.com.
Windows Mobile:
Microsoft’s My Phone service provides users with devices running Windows Mobile 6.0 or higher to locate lost phones and/or remotely erase their data.
Google Apps-managed devices (iPhone, Nokia E-series, and Windows Mobile):
Google Apps Premier Edition (a paid yearly subscription), for enterprises and schools, enables IT, administrators. To remotely wipe data from mobile devices.
From the information above, you can see that various smartphones have remote wipe capabilities, but many are not free or require the smartphone to be managed by an IT department. If you don’t have a remote wipe built into your device already. You can also download a free security/remote wipe app that is available for your specific device.
One important thing to note is that remote wipe requires your phone to have a charged battery and be on for you to be able to remotely erase the data. There are other possible issues as well, such as if the phone gets rebooted during the remote wipe process (which could be lengthy). Although the security may not be foolproof, however, enabling remote wipe remains an important first step in securing your smartphone. You need to set it up now.
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