55% Lost Phones Were Returned To Its Original Owner

What are you the chances of getting back your lost cell phone?

Security company Symantec conducted an experiment wherein they intentionally dropped a couple of mobile phones in Canadian cities, then wait for people to pick them up. This led to two consequences:

• Either someone picks up the lost phone and returns it back to the original owner
• Or someone picks up the lost phone and never returns the device.

A total of 60 mobile phones (all of them were smartphones with Symantec app installed) were dropped in Canadian cities including Calgary, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. Here’s what happened:

• Lost Phones Were Returned: 55 percent returned the phones to its original owner. The low percentage left Symantec’s expert disappointed.

• Lost Phones Were Never Returned: 45 percent never returned the phones. This is very common, as smartphones are considered valuable and most of them know that mobile tracking through IMEI (smartphones do not come with built-in IMEI tracking apps) or other traditional methods is very time-consuming. This is why those phone theft is on the rise!

  Source: Phone Theft in the World: Over 10000 Mobiles Stolen Daily

• Lost Phones Were Snooped: 97 percent checked the phone. As Symantec tracking app was already installed, it was easy to find out the things people did with the new phone they found on the streets. Everyone accessed a couple of apps, some checked email apps while one of them launched a salary app to find out more about the owner. Spying continued in many different forms.

A couple of phones remained untouched, for which there are a couple of reasons: people were afraid to pick up a phone found on the public roads, and some simply did not care or pay attention.

It is possible that those who picked may have returned the phones to Lost & Found centre, but such places are uncommon in most of the cities today.

So what about those people who intentionally never returned the phone back? They might have thrown the SIM card out, tried to hide IMEI number, or resell the phone in the grey market.

Recommended Reading: How Smart People are Reselling Stolen iPhones for Money

Via CTV News