By Tabitha Areba
With cases of robbery on the rise, mobile phone makers have established that users are ignorant of vital life-saving features in the gadgets.
However, the few like Mr Geoffrey Kamau, a community development officer with Nafos Kenya, have made good use of the mobile-tracker and helped the police apprehend robbers.
“Three gangsters are in police custody, thanks to my Samsung SGH B130s mobile phone which had the mobile tracker activated,” says Kamau.
Thugs attacked him on August 10 at Githurai 44 at 2.00am, made away with his phone, Sh5,000 and hit him with a machete on the forehead, leaving him unconscious.
messages sentWithout the knowledge of the robbers, messages were sent to two different numbers activated in his Mobile Tracker.
“On September 3, we apprehended three culprits, two young men and a lady who are now facing various accounts of robbery with violence,” he says.
The case is still under investigation.
“Samsung will soon launch a campaign to inform the public about the security feature that can help curb robbery cases,” says Ms Gloria Anampiu, marketing manager, Samsung East & Central Africa.
The company has explained the feature to the CID headquarters Cyber Crime Unit.
“People will want to know what to do next after they have reported that their phone has been stolen,” she says.
The tracking facility, however, will not give you the location of the robbers.
“Once you get the mobile number of the person with your phone, the next step one needs to do is to report the matter to the police,” she says.
She cautions the public against taking law into their hands in dealing with culprits.
“Very soon, they will be making an announcement on what numbers the public can call when they need assistance. Let them do that job of hunting down criminals,” she says.
At the Cyber Crime Unit, police will partner with the mobile service provider such as Safaricom and Zain to track the location of the robbers.
Track robbers down
All Samsung mobile phones except the windows mobile and the dual SIM have the tracking facility pre-installed.
Martin Njoroge, the company’s product co-ordinator, mobile phones division, East & Central Africa says dual-SIM phones cannot have the device because of the different profiles contained in the two SIM cards.
“Immediately the user switches the SIM card, the profile changes and it would be difficult to draw a line between the owner and a stranger,” he says.
It is like having two different phones treated as one single item. In the case of Windows mobile, he says the company is working with Windows to develop an application that will be compatible with the feature.
Those with Samsung phones with the mobile-phone tracker can recover data using another Samsung phone with the same feature.
Retrieve data
“You can access your phone from a different phone, log into your phone, retrieve, then delete all the information such as your contacts, messages, e-mails and divert your calls to a different line,” he says.
For security purposes, Anampiu advises that one keeps receipts safely after buying a phone for ease of identification.
“You can cut out the model number of the phone from the box and staple it to the receipt because that is evidence that you are the true owner of the phone,” she says.
When buying a second hand phone, he adds, do not take one that is not fully packaged. Ask for all the details, or else you will be a partner in crime. The mobile phone can save your life.
“When activating the mobile-phone tracker, put the international code to enable you recover your phone even if it is taken beyond the border. The two people whose numbers you have activated will receive a distress message,” she advises.
The company is working on ways to have phone warranties registered in a database.
“When you buy a phone, make sure you get a warranty card. The warranty will be registered as an e-warranty in a database where we will have all your details,” she says.
Our market
As a buyer, find out whether the phone you are buying has a warranty, if it is genuine and meant for this market and whether it is stolen by finding out who the previous owner is.
The keypad should not have Arabic characters because that is not for our market.
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