London Police Want to Make Phone Passwords Mandatory

It sucks to lose your phone or have it stolen. Not only is it annoying and expensive having to replace the device, but even more worrying is what criminals can do with the personal data stored on it.

That's why London's Metropolitan Police Force, according to an investigation by The Register, wants to get everyone using a password on their phone. The Register reports the Met has been lobbying both phone manufacturers and government for over two years for such measures to be put in place.

Reducing crime is the driving force behind the plethora of new initiatives to help keep mobile phones more secure. Most recently, Forbes reported that a number of banks have begun to implement technology into their apps that can detect whether an authorised user is holding the phone by monitoring not only their PIN number, but the pressure and speed with which they type it. This would mean that even if someone knew the passcode required to enter your phone, they would need to closely mimic how you typically press the buttons; something they're very unlikely to know or to be able to imitate.

Neil Costigan, founder of Behaviosec, the company behind the tech, said the goal is to get this into smartphones themselves rather than just the banking app, so that the security measures can be applied to the whole device. Only the most technologically sophisticated of criminals would then be able to pry into any data stored on your device and, in turn, that might deter thieves from stealing it in the first place.

A downward trend in phone thefts has already been witnessed in response to other data protection measures. Since Apple introduced the 'Activation Lock' with iOS 7, part of the 'Find My iPhone' app that functions as a kind of kill switch, both the UK and US have seen notable decreases in thefts of iPhones.

Biometric scanners in smartphones are of course also taking off, with the release of the iPhone 5 proffering the first fingerprint reader in the series to much fanfare, and the Samsung Galaxy S5 including a similar scanner. Admittedly, they're relatively easy to open using a fake print, and with the key—or correct fingerprint—likely to be smudged all over the glossy phone surface, they're perhaps more convenient than truly secure.

But in face of all the technological gimmicks, what the police really want you to do is simply use a password—because apparently most people still don't even do that.

According to The Register, the plan is for passwords to be the default on all new phones, so if for some reason a consumer doesn't want that layer of security, they'll have to actively disable it themselves. The logic is that, as with most opt-out schemes, most people will stick with the default settings.

DCI Bob Mahoney, quoted in The Register, said the idea had gained support from both the private and public sectors.

"On an unlocked phone, you can find a person's home address, home telephone number, their partner's details, diary, Facebook and Twitter account," he said. "This allows thieves to know when a target is not going to be at home or perhaps use their details to set up banking loans. They could destroy a person's life."

Even without fancy remote-locking apps and other layers of security, a simple password could largely be enough for people who want to keep common criminals out of their personal data, and to deter the general theft of phones. The more difficult it is for a thief to use a stolen phone, the less attractive a target it is.

"The development of pin codes on mobile phones means that phones stolen in the UK are no longer as valuable to those who seek to sell on stolen phones for the personal and financial information that they hold," said the Met in a statement to Motherboard.

They pointed to falling crime figures over the past year as evidence that "proactive prevention and enforcement" was working to deter phone theft: According to the police force, personal robbery involving mobile phones fell 34.1 percent in the past year and "theft from person" involving a mobile fell 32.3 percent.

But the problem right now is that up to 60 percent of people still don't have a password on their phone, according to internal research from the National Mobile Phone Crime Unit (NMPCU). "This means any thief would have wide range free access to all personal data on their devices," the Met said. "The use of a simple pin code will prevent this and make the phone less attractive to thieves."

And even if your phone is still nicked, it makes sense to have it locked—having personal information ripped from your phone is a more worrying prospect than having to replace a handset. So for the last time: get a password. You really shouldn't need the police to have to do it for you.