Understanding How Users Prepare for and React to Smartphone Theft

  • Divyanshu Bhardwaj, CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security

Smartphone theft is common, yet little research explores how users prepare for or respond to such incidents. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with victims who had experienced smartphone theft in the past two years. These cases ranged from opportunistic thefts to armed robberies. Our findings show that users are often unprepared and rely on basic protection measures like screen locks. After theft, they attempt to track their phones, activate Lost Mode and frequently turn to family and friends for moral support. Many experience significant distress, particularly from privacy concerns, loss of photos, and disrupted access to essential services like online banking. Recovery is often complicated by challenges such as SMS-based two-factor authentication (2FA). Our study identifies opportunities for phone vendors and service providers to enhance security features and recovery tools that address both technical and social aspects of smartphone theft.

Speaker bio

Divyanshu Bhardwaj is a fourth-year PhD student in the Usable Security and Privacy group at CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Germany. His research focuses on the behavioral and societal dimensions of consumer privacy, examining how people navigate digital privacy challenges in everyday life. He aims to inform privacy design and policy through user-centered, empirical insights that promote agency, accountability, and trust.

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