• Home
• Resources
• Products
• Your needs
• Your sector
• Partners
• Customers
• About us

• UK
• Resources
• News and media centre
• Data news on the web
• Londoners putting themselves at risk of identity f...

Resources

• Case studies
• Data quality research
• Events & webinars
• FAQ's
• Free software trials
• News and media centre
  • Data quality media centre
  • Data news on the web
  • Newsletter
• Product brochures
• Product demos
• ROI & savings calculators
• Tools

Data quality news

Londoners putting themselves at risk of identity fraud

Sep 19 2008, 08:00 AM

Londoners are being warned to do more to protect details such as their addresses, bank information and dates of birth after a recent study found that 60,000 hand-held devices were left in the back of black cabs in just six months.

A survey of 300 taxi drivers, carried out by Credant Technologies, found that over 55,000 mobile phones and over 6,000 other devices, such as laptops, were left behind in taxis.

If these devices were to fall into the wrong hands, criminals could use the information contained in them to commit identity fraud.

Credant Technologies chief marketing officer Michael Callahan said: "If it gets into the wrong hands of a criminal, hacker or opportunist, losing your mobile device can have serious implications, so our advice is always encrypt it and password protect it to stop it ever being accessed by anyone other than yourself."

A recent survey found that 16 per cent of respondents stored PIN numbers on their mobiles, while 24 per cent stored birthday dates.

There is also a wider risk of massive amounts of data going missing with memory sticks and portable hard-drives being among the lost items.

• Data integrity within the Finance sector - find out more