What I learned after my phone was stolen
midjourney v7 Thief on a bike cycling through crowd
Last week, a thief swiped my mobile as I crossed a busy road. The thief was driving an electric bike at speed against the flow of traffic and sped off at pace weaving between cars. Rather than complain about the increase of theft in London, I thought sharing the good and bad elements of this experience would hopefully help others.
Here’s ten things that might prove useful for you. Three to do now, before your phone is swiped, three to do as soon as possible if it is stolen, and three to do afterwards. Plus a bonus one, that I will start with now.
The bonus lesson is that society is not broken, phone theft is not an indicator of the collapse of civilisation, the end of the world is not happening because two individuals turned to crime to make money.
When my phone was stolen, total strangers came up to and asked if I was ok. One person offered to follow them on their bike but wasn’t sure that they would catch up. Another caught the last few moments on video and shared that with me to help the police. Many people checked that I was ok and that it was just a phone that they stole.
The helpful people continued. The two policemen I spoke with were sympathetic, polite, efficient, and concerned. After taking my details and sharing the incident with other nearby coppers they headed off to patrol around the area to prevent any other thefts.
My banks immediately blocked the cards and banking apps on my phone, my service provider blocked my number and gave me a new sim card with my old number within minutes. The incident happened at 9am and by 10am I had a sim card and replacement phone ordered for next day delivery.
So, society is not broken. Crime happens, it’s not great when it does, but there were so many people who were considerate, friendly, and concerned to convince me that people still want to help people. Despite what some individuals may suggest.
What about three things to do now, before a phone is stolen. These three things definitely helped in my case and could help you.
1. Lock down your phone. Set up your phone with biometric (fingerprint and face) passwords. Create a long PIN number, 16 digits. If you struggle to remember a long sequence, combine two dates together. Yes, this is not the most secure pattern against determined online hackers who may social engineer their way using dates related to you but against unknown opportunistic thieves, a secure phone is not what they want.
2. Configure your phone to delay entry. If your phone has it, go into settings and switch on THEFT PROTECTION. This will lock your phone if it is suddenly taken from you and will lock down your phone if it goes offline (like removable of a SIM card). Turn down the time to auto-lock your phone to no more than 30 seconds so if it is taken it will be locked quickly. Other settings include AUTO BLOCKER that stops USB cables from being inserted to control your phone. If possible, use an eSIM rather than a physical SIM card. A thief will quickly remove a SIM card to disconnect it from the network to avoid tracking or recover, but an eSIM has to be overwritten and cannot be removed. Register with Google’s Find My Device, Samsungs SmartThings Find, or Apples Find My applications with your phone details depending on your model.
3. Create strong passwords and passkeys for your accounts, and create passkeys on other devices like a laptop or another phone. These will encrypt your account access and link them to the specific device and your physical details. Using passkeys to access my phone remotely and delete it were essential to preventing data theft when my phone was stolen. Where you cannot create a Passkey then backup your passwords using a secure password manager and, ideally, keep an encrypted copy of important passwords on a separate USB at home or with a trusted individual. Yes, this is a pain to keep updated (and why passkeys are so much better) but when you lose your phone, you want to access your key accounts quickly.
What about immediate actions when a phone is stolen?
1. Remember, it is just a phone. The race is to lock down your data and not to recover the device. Think of how many phones you have probably owned and ask if any one of those phones actually mattered as bits of technology. Phones are just screens, cases, and chips that can be easily replaced (next day, probably) but your data is what matters. On theft, start to lock down your data.
2. Remotely lock your device. Hopefully, your previous actions will lock your phone and make it hard to access unless you have the right passkey. If you don’t have another phone, ask a nearby person to enter this link on their phone: ANDROID.COM/LOCK and then enter your mobile number. Your phone will now lock as long as it has connection and, immediately after a theft, the thief is trying to get away rather than access your phone. Remember this address ANDROID.COM/LOCK and enter your number.
3. Remotely Kill your Device. Remembering that the data is more valuable than your phone, remove your data from the device. Using the Find My Phone, Smarthings, or Find My apps enter your details and kill your phone. Remotely wipe all data, factory reset it. This can be done with a laptop, another phone, or even someone at the scene willing to help you. It does require you to access your account and that probably needs your password or passkey. If you don’t have another phone or laptop with you then head home and access your details from your trusted devices at home. Killing your phone is your main priority at this point.
The phone is wiped or being wiped, what happens next?
1. Report it to police. You’ll need a crime number and they will probably explain that getting the phone back is unlikely. However, this won’t bother you too much as your priority is stopping the thieves accessing your data. Even if they did find it, I would still kill the phone in case something has been implanted on it, but maybe I am overly paranoid. The police will help you and hopefully prevent other people in the area getting their phone stolen as well.
2. Cancel your bank cards. We increasingly use our phones rather than carry cash or cards. Call your bank, tell them what happened, and ask them to cancel your digital cards and any applications on the phone. This will stop the thieves going berserk with tap and go whilst your phone is wiped. If you’ve followed the above steps then any thief will struggle to get anything from your phone.
3. Share advice to reassure people. It’s just a phone but the data on it is vital. Help people who don’t understand technology to lockdown their phones. Passkeys, passwords, eSims, SmartThings may be words that make sense to you but not to many others. Sharing this advice with others and reassure them that society is not broken will help secure their devices and reduce the impact of those who wish to paint our society as broken for their personal gain.
Following the above advice won’t stop your phone being stolen, only reduce the impact. The simple advice to stop your phone being swiped is to keep it in your pocket and not use it in public. If you must use it, for instance I was looking at a map while crossing the road, then open your phone and turn against a building, with your back to the road. Don’t walk with it open in your hand. If you listen to music or take a call then use headphones. You can even use apps like Google Maps with verbal instructions so that you keep your phone in your pocket.
Finally, I really mean the advice about how helpful everyone was to me. It reassured me that people care and do not want to walk past ignoring crime, despite the many articles that I read contrary to that experience. Maybe I was just lucky when I was unlucky but my belief is that there is far more good in our society than bad and that was a great lesson to learn on a wet morning in London.
