Tracking your lost phone - is it a good anti-theft measure, or does it affect your privacy?
By Luci CJ
@LuciCJ (197)
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
September 13, 2016 2:15am CST
Nowadays all major phone manufacturers offer users online tools for tracking their lost or stolen devices - Samsung has Find My Mobile, Apple has the iCloud with the Find My Iphone feature, even stock Android allows you to locate your device with the Android Device Manager.
This way, in case your phone is lost or stolen, you have the possibility of locating it - and this way, of catching the thief, hopefully.
Would you think this is a good feature built into today?s smartphones?
Or given that in order for it to function the phone manufacturers need to collect data about your location - which may be stored on their servers and used to offer location-based advertisements - could it be a hazard to your privacy?
1 response
@Jackalyn (7558)
• Oxford, England
13 Sep 16
I don't have the anti-theft thing turned on on my phone, but am not that bothered by the intrusion. What would they find? Mainly that I play Scrabble a lot. I change passwords to online things almost every time I use them as I forget them and I log out. I wish my son would get a smart phone with anti-theft. I think he has lost yet another phone. He loses them at about the rate of one every two months and there has even been a "Josh loses phone" Facebook. It is a standing joke among his friends!
2 people like this
@LuciCJ (197)
• Cluj-Napoca, Romania
13 Sep 16
You brought us very insightful remarks, thank you!
Regarding your son's phone, what I would suggest you would be that, if he has a smartphone now, or the next time you purchase him one, have it configured to be locatable. Usually phone manufacturers have friendly and well-trained customer relations services. You could call them and if the phone is compatible, they can send you the exact steps you need to take, based on his device model.
@Jackalyn (7558)
• Oxford, England
13 Sep 16
@LuciCJ LOL it would work if he agreed to have one. He won't. He refuses to. He sold the one he bought to a friend because he could not stand that people were contacting him on it all the time and it kept pinging. My children think I am over reliant on my phone and have never understood it is my office!
1 person likes this
@LuciCJ (197)
• Cluj-Napoca, Romania
13 Sep 16
@Jackalyn What I would advise you (or, respectively him) in this case would be to disable notifications (or Push Notifications, as Apple calls them) for the apps that annoy him. Additionally, on Android phones you may disable syncing altogether, so the phone will retrieve online data only when you want, not when it wants. This way, not only that the phone doesn't alert you with pesky beeps all the time, but the battery will last longer, as well.
