Data Security vs Personal Safety
As some of you may know by now, I spent the entire day in hospital this Monday past, due to a fall on a wet floor at work. As I lay on the gurney in A&E, sending a Flickr snapshot of myself to the world at large, it occured to me that there is a potential conflict between my phone's data security and my personal safety.
My phone is "locked". That is, nobody can get into my phone that doesn't know the series of on-screen gestures I use to get to my applications. This is good. Not perfect, of course, but it limits the chances of someone finding my phone and being able to get at my data.
A few years ago, I read about putting an ICE contact in my address book. ICE standing for In Case of Emergency. This started out of the UK in 2005, but quickly became something recommended the world over. In fact, when I did my 1st aid renewal course last year, they spoke about it. The idea is that if you are hurt, emergency services can quickly and easily find out who to contact by looking up your ICE contact in your address book.
And I do have an ICE contact in my address book. Except that nobody can get to it, because nobody other than me knows how to unlock my phone... And I don't want to leave my phone unlocked because, well, I don't want to risk some nefarious bastard reading my TXT, looking at my PXT, or getting into my email, or running up my phone bill, etc...
What we need is an application that displays contact details and ICE details when the phone is turned on, without needing to unlock it. Or something like that, because it's a real conflict for me...
Obviously, I can list my ICE contact on a piece of paper and put that in my wallet. But precious time could be lost if the emergency crew just looks at the phone and finds it locked...
1 comment
I'm not sure about the Android OS, which I know you use, but on the iPhone in order to modify anything before the login/lock screen, you have to jailbreak you phone, otherwise I'd say "there's an app for that", or that one could be written. Maybe something else to add to my long list of things to research & develop. ;-)
