Having your phone stolen is super annoying and becoming more common with the rise of sophisticated phone theft operations that target the valuable data and raw parts attached to each device. This article has a really good writeup on these syndicates, what's in it for them, and why your phone may end up in China/Russia/Eastern Europe. Hopefully the tips below will lessen the pain if it does happen to you.
The Basics
- Be wary of your surroundings when using your phone in public and consider whether you want insurance.
- Save your IMEI number (in a place where you can access it even without your phone). Settings > General > About
- Set your screen lock to 30 seconds. Settings > Display and Brightness > Auto-lock
- Ensure your device is set up in "Find My" and you know how this works. Settings > (your name) > Find My > Find My iPhone > On. You will also want to have a play with the Find My app to make sure all your devices appear there. The Find My app comes with the phone as one of the default apps.
- Turn on Stolen Device Protection. Settings > Face ID & Passcode > 'Stolen Device Protection' and set this to ‘Always’ This will prevent the theif from changing your password even if they know it (by guessing or by socially engineering it from you or your contacts).
- Require Face-ID for any apps that contain secure data: Settings > Face ID & Passcode and/or full press app icon on home screen then 'Require Face ID'
- Disable 'Control Centre' from lock screen: Settings > Face ID & Passcode > scroll down and disable 'Control Centre'. The first thing a savvy thief will do is put on airplane mode to stop you disabling it remotely and then changing the above settings. As long as your screen is locked, they can’t access other data. I disable everything, but that's being very cautious.
- Set auto-wipe on the phone after 10 failed passcode attempts. Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Erase Data
- Require Attention for Face ID. Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Require Attention for Face ID
Advanced Measures - Super Airplane Mode
These measures use the Shortcuts app that comes as one of the default apps. Look for the icon that looks like the image on the right.
- Super Airplane Mode - Step 1 - Since the first thing a thief will try to do is to put your phone into Airplane Mode (disconnected from any network and thus unable to "phone home" or be contacted), you can use a series of Shortcut features to thwart this. First you will want to create a Shortcut that immediately disables Airplane Mode and locks the screen. Once the screen is locked, you need to unlock it to put it back into Airplane Mode (something a thief won't be able to do). It also sets the battery to "Power Save" mode to give your phone the best chance of lasting long enough to make contact or be tracked. You can create this yourself or copy a pre-made one from this link https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/e1fc7eb3fa45482d9b3b723ee4f529eb. If you access this from your phone it will install it as a Shortcut and you can long-press and Edit to see how it works. There is a mild annoyance in that you need to click "delete" on a later pop up in the workflow. Happy for anyone with better Shortcuts skills to provide feedback/improvements.
- Super Airplane Mode - Step 2 - We now want this Shortcut to be invoked every time someone tries to put the phone into Airplane mode. To do this, click on Automation at the bottom of the All Shortcuts screen, then click New Automation > Airplane Mode (or the + on the top right) then Is Turned On then Run immediately then turn off Notify When Run then click Next on the top-right then click on Super Airplane Mode. Now go back home and run it once to "initialise" the process and go through (clicking Delete when it asks).
- This adds a few steps to putting it into Airplane Mode, but it is quite a dangerous feature to let a thief have free access to. Hopefully Apple will allow us to enable Face ID as a requirement to use Airplane Mode in a future version of iOS.
Advanced Measures - Stolen Phone Focus Automation
- Stolen Phone Focus Mode - Since you can remotely put your phone into various focus modes (from your watch or a Mac), you can create a special "Stolen Phone" mode that will: 1) Put the phone into low power mode to maximise the time you can track it, 2) Set the brightness to 0 (very hard to see the screen), 3) Take a photo with the front and back camera and save to iCloud to maybe catch the perp, and 4) Automatically lock the screen and avoid any data-leaking notifications from appearing. You can even create more "active" measures like making the phone emit a loud sound, flash the light, send an SMS with various information, etc.
- Stolen Phone Focus Mode - Setup - Go to Settings > Focus then click the '+' on the top right then click Custom. Name your focus something like "Stolen Phone" with a red icon of some sort. Then click Next then Customise Focus. I then disable all notifications, chose a "THIS PHONE IS STOLEN" type of lock screen per the example on the right.
- Stolen Phone Focus Mode - Automation - Go to the Shortcuts App like you did for Super Airplane mode. Click on Automation on the bottom then '+' on the top right. Scroll down until you see the "Stolen Phone" Focus Mode you created in the prior step. Then select When Turning On and Run Immediately and disable Notify When Run. Then click Next on the top right and search for "Set Low Power Mode" and click, then at the bottom continue for searching for Actions such as Set Brightness (set it to 0 - or if you want your lock screen wallpaper shown then maybe something like 10), Take Photo - might as well take one with the Back Camera and Front Camera. Save them to the Photo Album. Then also set Lock Screen.
- Stolen Phone Focus Mode - Other - There are lots of other things you can do in the automation such as play loud sounds, etc. Have a play. Obviously the more energy consuming the activity (loud sounds) the shorter the battery will last.
Advanced Measures - Additional Screen Time Restrictions
- Using Screen Time Restrictions (Parental Control) you can create a PIN to access certain menus. Make this PIN different to your main phone PIN otherwise you defeat the purpose. If you had already set a Screen Time Passcode, this step is not necessary. Settings > Screen Time > Lock Screen Time Settings.
- While still in the Screen Time menu, select Content & Privacy Restrictions and change Passcode & Face ID from Allow to Don't Allow then go < Back
- From the Screen Time menu also set Accounts to Don't Allow
- This will completely remove the Passcode setting and will grey out the Account / iCloud settings. This is another layer to thwart someone who has stolen your phone. Click on the images to the right to see how iCloud is greyed out and the Face ID & Passcode section is completely hidden.
- To access these features you turn off Screen Time Restrictions which will require this second PIN.
If your phone gets stolen...
- Set the "Stolen Phone" Focus Mode as soon as you can (from an Apple Watch or Mac).
- Set your phone to "Lost" mode in "Find My" and then "Erase".
- Call the police and provide the IEMI number that you've saved and have access to per above.
- Call your phone provider to cancel the SIM.
- Closely monitor any suspicious activity and possibly notify your contacts who may have been contacted using your phone while unlocked.
*Posted: 08-December-2024, Updated 09-December-2024
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