There is no denying that mobile phones are all the rage and there is increasing pressure to make it a primary computing platform. People see no problem with accessing and working with their financial data or developing their social network from within this mobile platform. Then we have providers who want you watching movies, downloading music and watching TV all of which means that at some point some of your personal data is being stored on that mobile computer.

As integral a part of our lives that mobile phones have become there seems to be an almost lackadaisical attitude about when they go missing; whether they have been stolen or just plain lost for whatever reason. This attitude really struck with two separate incidents this past week or so where cell phones were lost and I was left with the impression of oh well I’ll just go and buy another one without any regard to how much it was going to cost to replace them and the loss of whatever data had been on them.

The first one was when Robert Scoble announced on Twitter that he had just lost his iPhone in a cab and the basic reaction was that this would be a good reason to buy the 3G iPhone when it comes out. Granted he didn’t have any valuable data on the phone but wait a second what about the cost of all this. Are we really made that much of money that we can brush off the loss of a $400.00 or $500.00 phone without even a single swear word and then turn around and spend another $200.00 (not counting AT&T bloodsucking) to replace it.

Then this morning we have Fred Wilson writing on his blog how he had lost his mobile phone while biking through Paris and while he pointed out that as a phone it was useless in Europe it could still be used with WiFi connections. While he was worried because some-one might end up being able to post to his blog or impersonate him on Twitter he wasn’t sure if his various social media accounts could be de-activated. In short his on-line identity could be stolen and there was basically nothing he could do about it.

Granted he raised the point that social media – especially those accessible via mobile platforms – need to provide a way to de-activate accounts I was left with a feeling that his next stop would be to pick up a new phone, load it up again with his social media applications and be on his way.

Both these examples; and these are just the one’s we hear about, for me are a prime example of why mobile phones can be a very dangerous platform to entrust our personal data on. When our wallets get stolen or lost we go ballistic and spend time making sure credit cards get canceled and we spend time replacing all the lost information. With mobile phones though we just seem to shrug our shoulders and head to the nearest store to buy a new one.

It is this kind of attitude that is making stolen mobile phones such a lucrative market and it will only become more so as we start carrying more and more of our lives in them.

Conversation Tags: security, mobile phones, theft