There’s an interesting study from Motorola which found that 1 in 4 people would rather share their toothbrush before sharing their phone. Yuck, I thought, but then I started to realize I may also fall into that camp.
One of the cool things about my job is that I’m swimming in all the latest cool smartphones. Whether its that tease Siri on the iPhone 4S, the latest 4G LTE phone from Verizon or even Windows Phone Mango, I always have a cool new device that my friends want to play with. In general, they’ll ask to check it out and I’ll flip it over to them without hesitation.
Then I see them playing with the phone and I get a little panicked. If you’re playing with a new phone, your natural tendency is to flip through texts, the camera gallery or even some e-mails but I do have some sensitive stuff in there and have to quickly snatch the device back. I’m not even a security nut or have super confidential information on my phones but there is definitely the opportunity for embarrassment if the wrong person gets to glance at my e-mails or photo galleries.
The Motorola survey really points out how much sensitive information we have on these devices that are ripe for the taking, even if you have a pincode set up. The survey found that 45 percent never install security software on their device (guilty) and that only 40 percent of users would reset their work e-mail password if they lost a phone.
These smartphones are increasingly becoming important hubs in our lives, so it is time to probably start taking security a little bit more seriously. As for the title of this post, let us know in the comments: Would you rather share your phone or your toothbrush.
[Via Motorola]