'Mumbaikars lost 33,000 phones in last 6 mths'

Over the last six months, Mumbaites have forgotten a staggering 32,970 mobile phones, 349 laptops and 349 USB (Universal Serial Bus) sticks/thumb drives at the back of taxicabs and these are just the ones that have been reported as lost.

Mumbai is not a lone case. A survey of taxi drivers (2006-07) from 11 major cities across the world, conducted by Pointsec Mobile Technologies, reveals that thousands of valuable mobile phones, handheld devices, laptops and USB sticks are forgotten in taxis every day.

The story of lost and forgotten mobiles echoes around the world with the same fate afflicting London, Sydney, Stockholm, San Francisco, Washington, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Oslo. Of all the cities, London emerges as the capital with the most forgetful population, losing 54872 mobile phones.

In case of handheld devices such as Pocket PCs being lost, London (4,718) ranked highest once again, followed by Washington (2,260), Munich (1902) and Berlin (1125). The number of lost laptops was also highest in London (3,179) with Munich in the second place with 355 followed by Mumbai in third spot with 349.

Peter Larsson, CEO, Pointsec Mobile Technologies said: "With the storage capacity of mobile devices increasing, it is important for users to recognise the need to protect critical data. The Taxi Survey conducted by us highlights the need to educate the users about the value of data stored and how it could be misused in case adequate security tools such as encryption are not used to protect the same."