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How to Protect Your Smartphone While Traveling
Take these steps to protect your photos, passwords and financial information
5-minute read
Learn the simple steps that can help protect your data, finances and personal information before you travel.
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Key Takeaways
- Regular cloud backups can preserve years of photos and other data if your phone is stolen and never recovered.
- Biometric authentication and advanced theft settings can help prevent thieves from changing passwords or accessing sensitive apps.
- After a theft, mark the phone missing, secure linked accounts, notify your carrier and financial institutions, and remotely erase the device.
Two days before my wife and I were set to return from a glorious winter vacation in Chile, a motorcyclist sped by me while I was sitting at an outdoor café in Santiago and ripped my iPhone out of my hand.
It was a shock. Before we left for the trip, we had seen a U.S. State Department warning about cellphone theft in Chile. But once we were there, we let our guard down. Everywhere we looked, we saw Chileans using their smartphones out in the open, just as Americans do. Only after the theft did we learn from locals that they’d also been targeted, or that friends and family had been.
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The good news: I wasn’t harmed. Still, I panicked. That wasn’t just a phone. It held apps for banking. It had thousands of photos. It even included an image of my passport. Luckily, I’d set up a cloud backup and had taken some security measures before our departure. I also knew most of what to do after the theft to prevent my financial apps and email from being hacked.
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Ideally, you’ll never experience what I did. But just in case, here’s what cybersecurity experts say are the steps you should take before your next trip — and before your next outing to the grocery store or anywhere your phone might be stolen.
Before you go
Back it up. Security experts at Apple and Google recommend backing up your phone’s data before you head out. Both tech giants offer remote cloud storage that regularly syncs with the phone.
Nataliya Stanetsky, a senior product manager overseeing theft protection for Google-owned Android, also points out that if your data is preserved, having your phone stolen feels less perilous. Theft victims who haven’t backed up are often reluctant to mark their phone as lost and remotely wipe it “because they’re afraid of losing that data that they gathered over the years,” she says.
But recovering your phone after a theft is rare. In London, for example, the recovery rate was only 2 percent in 2022, according to the BBC. If your data isn’t backed up before your phone is stolen, it’s probably gone for good.
Keep your cloud login handy. If your phone is stolen, you will need either your Apple (iCloud) username and password or your Google ID (same as the one you use for Gmail). To remotely label your phone as stolen and lock what’s on it — when you no longer have that phone — you’ll log in to those accounts via another device.
Create biometrics. To unlock your phone and access sensitive apps, enable facial recognition or fingerprint ID. Adding these biometrics is like adding another lock. On an iPhone, go to Settings | Face ID & Passcode. You can also add this protection to most apps by pressing and holding the app’s icon, then tapping Require Face ID. On an Android, go to Settings | Security & Privacy | Device unlock, then choose a biometric method.
Use strong passwords. On both Androids and iPhones, you can set up auto-generated passwords that you don’t have to remember. On an iPhone, go to Settings | General | Autofill & Passwords, then enable Suggest Strong Passwords. Android phones vary as do the instructions. One approach is to go to Settings | Password Manager | Select Password Manager, and at the bottom right, tap the gear symbol. Turn on Save Passwords. The iPhone password app also produces secondary (“two-factor”) codes, a safer alternative to hackable text messages. The Google Authenticator app serves the same purpose.
Activate advanced settings. This sounds difficult, but it’s easy. Both Android and Apple offer advanced settings that are geographically based (Stolen Device Protection on iPhones, Trusted Places on Android). They “know” your usual locations, such as home or work, and when you are in those places, you can use all your apps normally. Stray farther, and some functions will require biometric entry, via (facial or fingerprint recognition.
Android’s Advanced Protection will automatically lock the phone if it detects motions common to theft, such as a grab-and-sprint. It also prevents someone from accessing the phone’s data by using the charging port without first unlocking the phone. To enable it, go to Settings | Security and Privacy | Advanced Protection.
If you activate Apple’s Stolen Device Protection, your phone will require a second biometric unlock attempt an hour after the first, before it allows anyone to reset critical passwords. That means a thief has to wait before changing your Apple account or device passwords. To activate, go to Settings | Face ID & Passcode | enter your password | Stolen Device Protection.
Turn on your phone’s location. Activating traceability is the only way you’ll be able to lock a stolen phone and its data remotely, by logging in to your iCloud or Google account from a laptop or a friend’s phone. To do so, you’ll need to enable the Find My feature on an iPhone or the Find Hub feature on an Android phone.
If your phone is stolen
Mark it missing. Use another web-connected device to report that your phone is gone. For Androids, go to google.com/android/find. Sign in with your Google account to see a list of your devices. For iPhones, go to icloud.com/find, sign in and enable Lost Mode. By doing this, you’re shutting down the phone’s digital wallet. In the case of an Android, you’re also logging out of your Google account. If your phone has the latest version, Android 17, marking it lost will prompt it to require biometric authentication. This is also true for iPhones with Stolen Device Protection enabled. While you can leave your contact information, Apple cautions against doing so in the case of theft, as criminals could use it for scams.
Secure linked accounts. Once the phone is locked, use another device to log in to any email accounts linked to your phone and change your passwords. Notify your cell carrier and any linked financial institutions about the theft.
Wipe it clean. If you can’t recover your phone, you’ll want to remotely erase the data on it by going to the “find” links mentioned above. For iPhones, Apple advises leaving the Find My function enabled, because this works as a digital flag that makes the phone and even some of its components tougher to resell. For Androids, Stanetsky says, wiping the phone automatically makes it harder to resell.
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
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