HOW TO SECURE & RECOVER YOUR STOLEN PHONES

Content:

A.    HOW TO RECOVER YOUR STOLEN PHONES

Using your Google account

Using your dropbox account

Using installed application

Phone manufacturer’s service

B.    THE STARTING POINT OF SECURING YOUR SMARTPHONE

C.      VARIOUS MEANS OF SECURING YOUR PHONE AGAINST LOSS

1. USING YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT

Using Google Photos:

Using Google Find My Device:

Using Google Location History:

 

2. USING YOUR DROPBOX ACCOUNT
3. USING INSTALLED APPLICATION
4. PHONE MANUFACTURER’S SERVICE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOW TO RECOVER YOUR STOLEN PHONES

Do you know that modern phones can be secured against theft? What this implies is that you can prevent your phone from being stolen. This may appear as a surprise to some people because stealing of phone or misplacing of phones is a common thing and almost eighty percent of phones stolen or misplaced usually leave the owner forever. Meaning that it is usually hard to see someone that stole your expensive smartphone to return it to you. This possibility has encouraged more stealing of phones since every data can be erased in a matter of minutes and the new owner of the phone will comfortably use the phone without any trace.

This post will reveal to you how to secure your smartphone against stealing and how to track and recover the phone in the case of misplacing it or someone stole it from you. The two options above have some solutions in terms of recovering. However, you need to do the initial security setup to make it possible for your mobile to be tracked when the unexpected happens.

Assuming you have not used a modern smartphone some of the things we will be discussing here may not actually be clear to you because old smartphones have little security features that would enable us to recover the phone if it gets lost. Is appears the level of complaints channeled to smartphone manufacturers regarding stolen or misplaced phone got so high that they decided to make it a priority to put in some security measures against theft in a modern smartphone or one can still say it could just be a conception from the manufacturers to get such feature embedded in modern smartphones. Whichever option is the case, the import issue here is that you can now secure your smartphone in such a way that if you don’t use it no one else can. And anyone that inserts a SIM Card into the phone will be caught with the tracking security on the phone.

Let go into details on how to secure your phone. There are three major ways you can use to secure your smartphone, these methods are:

USING YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT

USING YOUR DROPBOX ACCOUNT

USING INSTALLED APPLICATION

PHONE MANUFACTURER’S SERVICE

 

THE STARTING POINT OF SECURING YOUR SMARTPHONE

Modern smartphones are not cheap. Therefore, it is important you secure it very well to assist you to recover it on the bad day when it finds itself in the hand of someone else who might have a bad idea of stealing it. The starting point of it all is to create a security system for the mobile phone by doing the following:

Use Fingerprint screen lock and PIN at the same time to lock your smartphone screen against unauthorized use (please do not use facial recognition because it can be bypassed in less sophisticated phones).

Create a Google account with the phone or log in to your existing Google account with the phone. This will enable you to get all your activities, files, photos, and lots more saved into your Google account directly instead of being saved in the phone’s memory.

Create a DropBox account as an alternative to a Google account for saving your files.

You strong passwords that do not relate to your name in the Google account and DropBox account.

VARIOUS MEANS OF SECURING YOUR PHONE AGAINST LOSS

USING GOOGLE ACCOUNT

You must have access to the internet in other to use Google services in securing your phone. Let’s assume the phone is connected to the internet, once you login into your Google account from your phone, save all your contacts to your Google account and all your files.

 

Using Google Photos: Then enable ‘Backup & Sync’ options in the Google photos. This will make you see any picture someone will use the phone to snap anywhere you are. The funny thing about this service is that Google Photos will reveal the location the picture was taken and the time. This will go a long way in helping you track your stolen phone. However, this option is only possible if you gave your photos app permission to access your location and there must be internet on the phone to get the photos saved in your Google account. Another problem is that if the person logs out of your Google account then this option may not work. If everything was done right you can use the location provided to you to track the theft by involving the law enforcement agencies. In case you want to try it out, visit https://photos.Google.com after you have login into your Google account with the phone. The link will enable you to view your existing photos and any new photo sent into your Google account from any phone your Google account was logged in.

 

 Using Google Find My Device: Google finds my device is a special service from Google targeted at helping phone users to recover their stolen phones. However, you must have your phone internet services turned ON to get the best of the service. Besides that, you must be logged in to the Google account to make Google Find my Device work effectively.  Usually, this service is turned ON by default in your Google account. The settings may change in the Google settings app. You need to allow the ‘Find My Device’ service to lock your device and delete its data in case your device is stolen. This means your vital information in the Google account will not be revealed to the person holding your phone.

In case you want to activate this service in your smartphone visit: https://www.Google.com/android/find look at the right side on the top of the page to view where to activate the service. Once you are there, select the smartphone you want to find from the list of logged-in devices in your Google account. This service has been upgraded by Google in such a way that some features are now seen in search results. Meaning that if your device is known to Google you can simply type ‘where is my phone’ in Google search form and the search engine will display a little map above the search result and the map will try to reveal the location of your phone and you can make it ring from there by clicking ‘ring’.

 

Using Google Location History: Google location history known as ‘Timeline’ is another way you can use Google account to track your stolen phone. All the phone need to have is a good internet connection, your Google account has not been logged out from the phone, you activated the Location Reporting and location history, all these can be done in your Google settings app. This service records all the location routes the device has moved including the last place. This simply means that it will reveal all the locations the phone has passed even to the last place before the phone was switched off.

 

USING YOUR DROPBOX ACCOUNT

Using DropBox to secure your phone is very simple all you need to do is to grant permission to your smartphone camera to save all photos to your DropBox account. However, for this to work, you must sign in to your DropBox account on the phone. The phone needs to have internet access to enable saving. Here is a way to make this possible:

Download a DropBox App and sign in to the app.

Go to settings, locate ‘Camera upload’ and grant the app permission to upload any picture taken with the phone camera into your DropBox account.

With the simple step mentioned above, you have secured the phone camera with the DropBox account. In the case that ever other options failed, the DropBox account will become the next option. All you need to do is to monitor any picture taken with the phone in your DropBox account using any other device like a laptop or another smartphone.

 

USING INSTALLED APPLICATION

Another reliable way of securing your smartphone is by installing a good anti-theft application that is readily available in the Google play store. There are hundreds of mobile apps in the Google play store specifically made to secure your mobile phone against loss or being stolen. This type of application can be so efficient if the thief has little knowledge of how mobile apps works. Another way it can still help is if the phone was actually misplaced and the new person in possession of it doesn’t want to steal it.

Here is a list of things a good anti-theft mobile app could do:

You can drop a different number in the mobile app that you can use to receive SMS incase another SIM Card has been inserted into the Smartphone.

The Mobile app can lock the smartphone completely until a certain security check is conducted which only the owner knows the security check.

The mobile app can hack all the SMS and call details and send them to an optional number provided in it.

The mobile app can reveal the phone location even when the GPS is not on.

The mobile app can provide access to the phone files once the real owner can log in to it.

The above features and more can be obtained from an anti-theft mobile application installed in the phone. The only problem is to get a good one from the play store. Perhaps, you can do that by checking on the review of each app that performs the same function. Apps with good functionalities always have good reviews from its users.

 

PHONE MANUFACTURER’S SERVICE

Most smartphone manufacturers are now involved in helping their customers to recover their phone once it gets lost. The big names in the industry like Apple, Samsung, Gionee, and lots more are installing special apps that cannot be uninstalled into their devices. Once you launch the device for the first time, you will be prompted to register the device. The registration will require you to create an account in the manufacturer’s database through the app. In the process, you may be required to provide a fingerprint, special pin, and password and the actual SIM Card that will be using the Smartphone. In the future, if another SIM Card is inserted into the smartphone the login details into the manufacturer’s database will be required. Hence, if the new user is a theft, the phone will remain locked forever. This simply means the phone will become useless to the thief. Some apps can work with the option to provide an alternative phone number to receive activities of the phone in case it gets stolen. This last option will expose any new SIM Card inserted into the phone to the real owner. Tracking your phone through this method is very simple. All you need to do is to visit the phone manufacturer’s database, login with your details, and be able to view all the activities the thief is doing with the smartphone you can every lock the phone from there or turn it OFF. So far, this method seems to be the most effective and less stressful way of tracking your stolen phone. However, it may not work if the user didn’t take time to register the phone from the first it was launched with a SIM Card in it. Also, this option is not available on all smartphones.

 

From the list of options made available to you through this post, I believe you can possibly prevent your phone from complete loss. It is time to play smart and control your expensive smartphone wherever you are and catch anyone with the intention of stealing it.