Would you return a smartphone you randomly found?
Symantec Canada recently conducted “The Honey Stick Project” to experiment, which Canadian locations would return smartphones they just found.
To do so, they strategically placed 60 “lost” but traceable smartphones each containing personal and corporate data across six Canadian cities: Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, and Haliflax.
Each one of the phones had full battery and dummy apps with false data. To make things interesting, Symantec Canada also installed software allowing them to know exactly what information was accessed from each app.
Finding from the experiment revealed:
- 93% accessed the devices
- 83% viewed personal data
- 72% clicked through to login and password screens
- 63% viewed corporate e-mails
- 53% viewed private photos
- 55% tried to return the phones
Now here’s the interesting, and scary part. According to the experiment, Vancouver was the least likely city to return a lost smartphone they just found. Out of the 10 placed in the city, only 3 “finders” tried to contact the owner and return the phone. Montreal was a close second.
Full results:
1. Vancouver – only 3 out of the 10 tried to return the phone.
2. Montreal – only 4 out of the 10 tried to return the phone.
3. Halifax – 5 out of 10 tried to return the phone
4. Toronto, Halifax, and Calgary tied with 7 of 10 tried to return the phone
Check out “The Honey Stick Project” infographic.
