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Warrington, England-based Magic4 is in the process of developing Phoneguard, a mobile application designed to remotely disable stolen handsets, rendering them immediately unusable by the thief. The real purpose of the technology, according to Magic4's chief executive officer, Simon Wilkinson, is "to provide the deterrent to stop the initial, traumatic theft."
With almost half a million teenagers experiencing a mobile phone theft in the UK, the company is hoping to release a product that will be so effective that potential thieves will not bother stealing the phone in the first place.
The solution, if successfully developed, would almost surely be welcomed by the industry following a report released by the UK Home Office earlier this week which suggested that a mobile is stolen every minute in the UK. The report revealed a huge surge in handset theft since 1995, and said mobile phones were now involved in 28 percent of all robberies, compared with eight percent three years ago.
With some foresight, Magic4 began working on Phoneguard in Q3 2001. The product sends a specifically encrypted SMS message that immediately disables the mobile phone, similar to the way operators currently block stolen SIM cards.
Robert Wakeling, Magic4's director of product strategy, noted that there are tools and devices that can block a stolen phone from being used, but he pointed out that there are ways around most of these systems. He explained how the Phoneguard system works: if a handset is stolen, the user would notify the operator to have the SIM blocked. Should a new SIM card be placed in that stolen phone, the handset will send an SMS to the operator containing data such as the serial number for the inserted SIM, country code, network code and even Cell ID. In effect, the operator would know who has the phone (through the ID number of the new SIM), what network it's on and where it is.
The operator can then decide to send a "kill" message or can track the phone. If the phone is recovered, the disable command can be simply rescinded, Wakeling explained.
The company has partnered with PwC Consulting as it looks to make the service commercially available this year. The UK based company has 50 employees worldwide and was founded two years ago with EUR15 million in funding from 3i and Philips Enterprises. Its offices are in the UK, Stockholm, Paris and Los Angeles and Wakeling says the firm is looking to expand into the Far East.
The company's flagship product, Magic4 client, is a packet-based messaging client that allows rich multi-media content and forms-based transactions to be delivered over packet-based technologies such as SMS and GPRS. It was adopted by phone makers Motorola and Philips last year.
Magic4 is at http://www.magic4.com
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