We don’t ususally post project wins. But we’re making an exception because this one has a very public profile and it really is about innovation – design innovation to be precise. We teamed up with Minima Design and have been selected to deliver part of the Mobile Phone Security Challenge set by the Design Council.
Funded by the UK government, the Design Council was set up to “demonstrate that design can play a vital role in strengthening our economy and improving our society”. There’s loads of information on their website about current projects with great aims – such as reducing healthcare associated infections with better designed furniture.
This particular challenge is part of the Design & Technology Alliance Against Crime which is “leading a programme of work to develop innovative design solutions to help prevent robbery, to crime-proof hot new gadgets and to embed public safety in the design of new public spaces”.
The challenge briefing notes set out the problem neatly. “Four billion people worldwide have mobile phones – twice as many as have credit cards – and 80% of us carry information on our handsets that could be used by criminals to commit fraud. 16% of us already keep our bank details on our phones.” Anticipating the success of mobile payments “when credit on our phones will replace the cash in our wallets” the challenge is to mitigate risk by:
— Making mobile phone handsets harder or less desirable to steal
— Making the data stored on mobile phones harder or less desirable to steal
— Making future m-commerce transactions secure and fraud proof.
Of course it would be spoiling things to reveal what our plans are at this stage. Look out for some prototypes of market-ready solutions early next year.
