Technology is not a giant: it is your slave
BY: Maria Fazal
As trend of using expensive phone is increasing day by day, people are facing difficulties in protecting their costly smart phone from misuse, theft, snatching and missing. Your smart phones are precious and if you want to protect it from others, follow these tips:
Use a strong screen lock
This is your first and strongest line of defense, if your mobile is offering you fingerprint reader than activate it:
Active “find my phone” Application
To take advantage of this, you need to install a special free app that we’ll describe below, which works together with a free service that you can use to locate or erase the phone once it’s gone.
Attach a note
Tape a tiny note on the back of your phone with your e-mail address or a work number (You don’t want to give a potential burglar your home number).
In my informal tests, printing my e-mail address in a small font and taping it on with a small strip of shipping tape worked well on phones with smooth metal or plastic surfaces. On phones with rubbery or rough surfaces, neatly write that info, using a fine-point permanent marker, on a small strip of duct or electrical tape, which clings better to such surfaces. Choose a spot on the phone that’s least likely to receive constant rubbing from your palm or fingers.
On Android phones, you can also type such a message in the Owner Info section of the Security submenu in Settings. But if you erase the contents of your phone, that message will disappear.
Back up your photos and videos
Phone carriers, phone makers, and operating systems typically offer free over-the-air backup for phone camera content, settings, and more. These options often appear when you set up the phone for the first time, though you can always activate them later. Selecting a carrier-neutral source, such as Apple’s I-Cloud, Android’s Google +, or Microsoft’s One Drive will make it easier to retrieve your precious memories should your next phone be from a different carrier.
Record your phone’s unique ID number
Smart phones have a unique serial number known as an IMEI (International Mobile Station Equipment Identity) or MEID (Mobile Equipment Identifier). Unlike other identifying information stored on the phone’s removable SIM card, these numbers are etched into its circuits and difficult to alter. Your cell carrier already has this 15-digit number on file, and may be able to use it to put the phone on a missing phone list. Some police departments ask for either of these numbers when you report a stolen phone, so that they’ll be able to return it to you if it’s recovered
It is also often found printed on or under the phone’s battery. You can find your phone’s IMEI by dialing *#06#. The number should pop up on your screen.
