New technology always carries new risks with it, and that's a dilemma that Japanese businesses are having to face as more and more of their employees use mobile phones to get work done. Japan, as a society, is even more in love with the mobile phone than Americans are and they constantly use the device to maintain business contacts and even work on documents for business. This means that a lot of mobile phones are carrying a lot of sensitive information in a relatively easy to steal package, and rather than prohibit the use of mobile phones for work, many companies are looking to new security technologies to solve the problems.
One company offers a variety of security features on its high end phones. For example, it's now possible to have fingerprint identification, voice recognition, and facial recognition all built into mobile phones. This technology is largely the result of new mobile phone chips that can process information much faster than they could just a few years ago. Basically, a phone is equipped with one of these features and then when the user identifies him or herself, the phone unlocks itself to provide access to sensitive documents, contact information, and even the ability to make purchases simply by waving the phone over a special sensor.
Of course each of these types of technology has its disadvantages. Fingerprint recognition is one of the least practical because it requires that expensive scanning hardware be built into the phone, and then it may fail to recognize a user's fingerprint if the finger is wet, dirty, or injured. Facial recognition is only better in the sense that since most phones have cameras anyway, it only needs relatively cheap software in order to work, but it can be thrown off by the application (or removal) of makeup or shadows produced by varying lighting conditions. Voice recognition technology has similar problems, and advantages. It's relatively cheap to implement, but the phone can fail to recognize its users voice because of background noise or if the user is congested.
In all of these cases, the main problem is that a phone may fail to recognize the user's biometric features because of varying conditions. This may be especially annoying in a society that's coming to rely more and more on these devices in every day life. Another problem with these types of security technologies is that they have to be set up before they can be used, and in that way, they have much more in common with lower tech security measures like personal identification numbers. The main problem with personal identification numbers is that most people don't bother changing them from the defaults and those who do change the numbers invariably choose new numbers that are extremely easy for thieves to guess.
The irony about all of these security measures is that they can all be defeated in some way. For example, even if a phone is locked with biometric data, that doesn't mean it can't be hacked just like a personal identification number can be hacked. There are a number of measures in place that will get in the way of this happening like the ability to lock a phone remotely, and even sending a remote signal to have the phone erase all of its data, but those aren't always practical.
One company uses a method to make phones secure that's extremely simple and nearly fool proof. It takes advantage of RF chip technology so that when a phone and a corresponding key are near each other, the phone will work. When they aren't close together, the phone won't work. Sometimes the least sophisticated technologies are the best.
A leader in reporting, Julia Hall has published articles about the latest digital devices and gadgets for over ten years. After graduating from MIT with a degree in electrical engineering, Julia turned down huge salaries from some of the most recognized fortune 500 companies in the world to pursue his dream of becoming a leading consumer advocate. Julia uses her expertise to cut through the too good to be true deals offered by high tech companies to reveal the real steals and the real duds that we're bombarded with daily. If you enjoy staying on the cutting edge of technology, whether for business or pleasure, but find yourself occasionally confused by the overwhelming information out there let Julia be your guide.
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