Both users and governments alike are interested in seeing smartphone companies do everything in their power to make phone theft as unattractive as possible. Apple’s got its activation lock for iOS, discouraging smartphone theft by making it tricky for a criminal to wipe a stolen phone and use it like new. Just yesterday, we told you about Microsoft’s efforts to deploy a similar system. Now it’s Google’s turn to chime-in, and today we learn about the company confirming plans for its own lock-down system to arrive in a future Android release.
Google says that we can expect a “factory reset protection solution” in the next version of Android, presumably building off the tools already available via the Android Device Manager. With rumors that Android 5.0 could make an appearance as soon as next week, those new protections might be in place very soon indeed, though even if we’re waiting a few more months, at least we have confirmation that they’re arriving eventually.
We also don’t yet know exactly what form this new lock-down system would take, but based on Google’s own words, presumably it would offer protections similar to Apple’s efforts, preventing a full factory reset from making a locked phone usable again without proper owner authorization.
Considering the size of Android’s market share, strong, enabled-by-default security of this type could go a long way towards reducing smartphone theft, and the black market for stolen hardware, but we’ll want to withhold judgment until we know for sure the details of how this will work.
No comments:
Post a Comment