The data protection company Credant Tehnologies recently carried out a survey of London and New York taxi drivers and found some amazing facts about the sort of things people leave behind in taxes.

The survey was carried out simulatenously amongst 300 New York Yellow cab drivers and 300 London taxi owners to highlight the growing number of gadgets being left behind each year.

• London taxi passengers have left more than 60,000 hand-held devices in the back of black cabs during the past six months
• Some 55,843 mobile phones and 6,193 other devices, such as laptops, were forgotten

With new devices – including mobiles, MP3 players and memory sticks – having the capacity to store tens of thousands of documents or pictures and millions of contacts and emails, they are now easy target items for identity theft criminals and hackers.

Chief marketing officer Michael Callahan said: “If it gets into the wrong hands of a criminal, hacker or opportunist, losing your mobile device can have serious implications, so our advice is always encrypt it and password protect it to stop it ever being accessed by anyone other than yourself.”

The survey’s findings follow a number of high profile data-loss scandals, which have highlighted the risk of identity theft.

The moral of the story is look after your gadgets, think about mobile insurance; laptop insurance or gadget insurance and don’t put information on there if you don’t have to.

But it is not just mobile phones that are being forgotten …but a sawn-off shotgun, a couple of kids, 12 dead pheasants, 2 dogs, 1 cat, toilet seats and more… When the cabbies were asked to recall what the strangest objects were that they’d found at the back of their cabs they reported that it wasn’t uncommon for people to leave their most precious possessions, including their kids, a drunken wife left $2,700 as a tip, which apparently made its way back to the owners. Other articles left behind included firearms, prosthetic devices, and pets.

Posted by admin on Thursday, September 25th, 2008