Mobile Banking could drive data protection on lost / stolen phones

Just came across news that AT&T’s Cingular wireless has taken the plunge into Mobile banking. Check out the post titled "AT&T Planning Mobile Banking" dated 27th Mar 07 by Bruce Meyerson. Wachovia Corp., Regions Financial Corp., SunTrust Banks Inc. and BancorpSouth Inc. will enable AT&T customers who bank with those companies to use their cell phones to check account balances, transfer funds between accounts and pay bills.

However what caught my attention was not the mobile banking bit – but the part about data deletion in case of lost phones. To use the new service on an existing AT&T mobile phone, customers will need to download a program. AT&T plans to begin embedding software on new handsets starting in the second half of 2007. The application downloads account and bill information to the handset, so users will be able to view account balances, transfer funds, and receive and pay bills when their devices are not connected to AT&T's mobile Internet service. If a device is lost or stolen, the data can be remotely cleared from the device.

There is a growing use of this kind of a facility (for remote data deletion) – but the early adopters of this would be applications of mobile handsets in situations that involve sensitive, personal or commercially exploitable (e.g. account and bill information) information.