Cash prize to design secure phone

People now carry an average of £180 worth of gadgets on them

The Design Council is offering £400,000 for designers to develop new ways of securing mobile phone handsets.

The competition - backed by the Home Office - wants people to marry a range of professions to improve security.

"I would like to see a fashion designer come up with a new way of secreting mobile," said the council's chief executive David Kester.

Applicants have until 22 May to submit their applications, with the finalists announced on 29 June.

Mr Kester told the BBC that part of the problem was that while mobile phone developers made their products look more attractive to customers, they were also making them more attractive to criminals.

He also said the combined value of phones and gadgets was getting higher each year.

'Sexy gadgets'

"On average, kids today are walking about with £180 worth of kit on them - phone and digital media player for example - which makes them walking targets," he said.

"And a lot of these products are criminogenic - in other words, they are naturally attractive to criminals because designers make these gadgets look sexy."

The Design Council said the challenge for designers could be broken down into three areas:

• How to make a mobile harder or less desirable to steal
• How to make personal data more secure
• How to make online and mobile transactions more secure

Mr Kester said that M-commerce - using a mobile phone to manage and access your bank - would not only launch in the UK but could well be the way people do business in the future.

It is feared that once a phone replaces a wallet the rates of mobile crime could soar.

"We have significant investment from banks and credit card companies developing new M-commerce systems," Mr Kester said.

"We want to make sure that we pre-empt the increased risk and possible rise in crime by launching this challenge."

Mobile phones can be unlocked which allows them to operate on other networks or they can be unblocked, which involves removing a bar placed on them by a phone company, usually when a phone is stolen.

Unlocking phones is usually legal as long as the user owns the phone - this is often not the case when tied into a contract with a provider.

Unblocking phones is a different matter. Under UK law it is illegal to modify the international mobile equipment identity (IMEI) number.

The IMEI number would have to be altered to unblock it or remove it from the British mobile phone network blacklist.

The knowledge

Mark Foster, an expert on mobile handsets, said that the act of unblocking a phone needed both expert skill and expensive equipment.

"It depends on the make and model. Some phones you can unblock in less than five minutes.

"However, you need expert knowledge and a service box, which can cost £200 or more."

Mr Foster said that in his experience, the majority of phone crime was opportunist - either stealing a phone that was lying about or mugging someone who was using an attractive phone.

He said that the victim would often quickly block the phone and that finding someone to unblock it was not easy for the average criminal.

"One of the problems is that the blacklist database only covers the UK, so what some criminals do is sell it in Europe where the IMEI won't be on a blacklist.

"That said, some manufacturers make it too easy for people who know what they are doing. While Nokia phones are almost impossible to unblock - it would take an expert a long time and a few component changes - some of the older phones are very easy."