Why Smartphone Owners Won't Use Lock Screens
Locking phone screens can deter thieves, but more than a quarter of smartphone owners use various justifications to decline to do so.
Locking the screen on your smartphone is one of the easiest and most effective things you can do to protect it. Four little numbers or an alphanumeric password can be an incredible deterrent to thieves, or even to inquisitive friends and family members, yet more than a quarter of smartphone owners in a recent study declined to do so.
What those people may not know is just how much personal data is stored on even the most modest phone, wrote six security researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, the International Computer Science Institute and Google, who collaborated on a paper called "Are You Ready to Lock?" that explored smartphone-user locking behavior.
MORE: 15 Best Mobile Privacy and Security Apps
The paper, which its authors will present at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Scottsdale, Arizona today (Nov. 5), is not a comprehensive study, but rather a small, qualitative sampling to illustrate a larger point. Researchers interviewed 28 smartphone owners about their habits and discovered that eight of them — more than one-quarter of the participants — did not use a lock screen at all.
Researchers found that among the 70 percent of participants who did lock their phones, their reasoning for doing so was sound. Phone-lockers cited everything from privacy to data costs for their decisions.
Those had not locked their screens had more nebulous concerns. Some of them had simply put it off; others wanted good Samaritans to be able to access a phone's contacts in case it was ever lost; some cited the inconvenience of constantly unlocking phones, which the study authors admitted amounted to an hour each month; and some felt that the data stored on the phone simply wasn't worth stealing.
Whatever the justifications, the researchers argued that not locking your phone is the much riskier option of the two. Most smartphone users never log out of their social media or e-mail accounts, both of which hold tantalizing information for phone thieves. Many banks require only a valid e-mail address to reset a password, and many users have their Social Security and credit-card numbers buried in their e-mail messages.
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While readers should remember that 28 people are not necessarily indicative of the public's behavior at large, there are plenty of smartphone owners out there not taking adequate steps to protect their very available data. Either lock your smartphone or limit how much information you can access on it.
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Marshall Honorof is a Staff Writer for Tom's Guide. Contact him at mhonorof@tomsguide.com. Follow him @marshallhonorof and on Google+. Follow us @tomsguide, on Facebook and on Google+.
Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and technology. After hours, you can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.
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Daren Bukator I lean towards the good Samaritan argument.Reply
I don't use a lock screen because if I lose my phone, I want someone to find it and use my contact list to return the phone. This has happened more than once and I've done the same after finding a lost phone.
If there was a lock screen that featured a "lost phone contact list" icon, then I would use it. -
Heather G Hey Daren, not sure if you're aware, maybe not but there is a display option on the Android phone that you can have 'if found call....' on the display prior to having to enter a pass code, PIN.Reply
btw, I think you are a good Samaritan, get what you give.
Cheers. -
kyzarvs Good intentions by not using the lock screen so it can be returned, but even my much-ridiculed Blackberry manages to have an "If found, please call" message on the lock screen.Reply -
impy1980 ICE/Found info can be entered in to the "owner info" settings in Android (under Settings > Security), so easy to do, no app needed, no need to leave your phone unlocked, which is just stupid if you have banking or payment apps on your phone.Reply -
Jonathan Jon Jonlingtonson The whole "Good Samaritan" thing seems extremely risky to me. Although I do believe most people would return a lost phone, there are those who lack consideration for others. A few bad apples spoil the bunch, after all.Reply -
Jonathan Jon Jonlingtonson The whole "Good Samaritan" thing seems extremely risky to me. Although I do believe most people would return a lost phone, there are those who lack consideration for others. A few bad apples spoil the bunch, after all.Reply