Lost Your Cell Phone? Chances Are About 50/50 To Get It Back

According to a recent study done by The Vancouver Sun, the odds of getting a lost cell phone returned are about 50/50. One unsettling finding is that the odds of a person getting his or her cell phone probed is about 100 percent. The investigation took place in Canada, in which cell phones were dropped in the areas of Calgary, Halifax, Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. The investigators waited to see if strangers would return the cell phones. All of the phones had icons and tracking software preloaded on them.

The results were surprising. Out of all of the phones that were placed, 55 of them were picked up by people that attempted to return them. About 40 percent of the phones that were picked up were never returned. Even the phones that were picked up by honest people were still snooped through. This means that when a person loses their cell phone, they are almost sure to have strangers look at their private information. In total, roughly 93 percent of the phones that were picked up where in some way accessed by the people who found them.

The findings of the study are a bit disturbing; still, the results help cell phone users learn plenty or at the least, reiterate on best practices. For instance, the study backs up the fact that cell phone owners should always have a password on their phone, and they should keep all of their information as private and inaccessible as possible.

Sources:

Lost a cellphone? Chance of getting it back not much better than 50/50: study
http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/lost-a-cellphone-chance-of-getting-it-back-not-much-better-than-50-50-study-1.1744540#ixzz2wyKTEfc8