If there is one piece of technology that should be made secure, it should be the mobile phone. Well, for all technical accounts, most devices have a certain degree of security in them –but the mobile phone is the one device that has the most sensitive data available.
Take your basic smart phone; this is by all means, still a mobile phone. This means that the handset as a list of call contact data available (names, addresses, contact numbers and other details), has a track record of incoming, missed and made calls, and of course logs all of a user’s sent and received messages. That alone is enough to make anyone worry.
But a smart phone can do so much more: access the internet, browse, download content, read emails and other important tasks. Combine that data with everything else above having someone access your phone data becomes the stuff of science fiction nightmares involving hacking and identity theft.
And this is where mobile phone makers come in. Naturally, mobile phones carry a certain degree of encryption in their system, but for some, the security goes beyond anything ordinary. Take Research in Motion; the phone maker is currently facing a ban from the UAE and in Saudi Arabia because they have refused to give out the encryption keys for local users. According to RIM, the data –the encryption keys, cannot and will not be given to the UAE government.
But for the average smart phone user, do we need security that is on the same level as what BlackBerry provides? Not quite, though it would help for people who work in companies where keeping office data (especially financial data) secure and encrypted.
In the meanwhile, BlackBerry users in the UAE are still waiting what might happen to their devices once the ban kicks in next month.
Tags: BlackBerry, privacy, UAE, United-Arab-Emirates