Barcelona - La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, MWC and ... Pickpockets

Barcelona. Normally associated to La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Camp Nou, La Rambla, …

Since this Saturday more to pickpockets. And something more.

Just keep on reading, as it had been a learning curve for me as well.

My son attended to a seminar during his voluntary service. On his way back he had a layover in Barcelona. He took the opportunity to visit the different sightseeing highlights by using the public transport.

And then it happened. While being in the bus, someone stole his phone which was hidden in his cloths' pockets.

He tried locating his phone. He reported - after running? to four different police stations - finally his mobile phone as stolen. He set the phone status to lost in the cloud. It has been a bad surprise for him.

Why four different stations? The first ones were not speaking English. And his school Spanish was not sufficient. The second and third ones were not responsible for taking reports on pickpockets. And the fourth one filed a report. But told him that this will be useless.

Knowing that quite some bunch of you guys are heading in the next days to Barcelona, here are some lessons learned.

1. Store your devices securely. Try not using them in public transport, as pickpockets easily spot, where you are storing them after use.
2. Keep mobile phone and ID/credit/debit cards separately. If they steal your phone, your other valuable tokens are not directly at risk. Luckily he didn't do this.
3. Block your stolen phone - he had been using an 苹果 iPhone. Using the iCloud he reported the mobile phone as stolen. And implicitly all the digital cards stored in the Apple wallet have been set to suspended.
4. Even that this may be annoying sometimes - restrict the access to your control center in standby mode. This will prevent thieves from deactivating the cellular connectivity.
5. Even that the police may not get your phone back. Report it. Because of bullet point 6.
6. You can be lucky when you are having an insurance for valuables during your travel. And here you need to have evidence about the police file. Thanks to the friendly exchange, Frau Karlitschek from Allianz !

Now to my own personal learning: BE AWARE OF FURTHER RISKS!

My son had been adding a message for the thief. It was a bit rude - he was definitively upset.

I thought, well let's add my mobile phone number to the display. Just in case someone finds the phone and wants to reach out.

And yes - someone called me. Unfortunately I missed that call. And afterwards there were messages popping up. Indicating that the phone had been found. From the iCloud. In Barcelona.

Desperately I clicked on the link. Yes. An address in Barcelona appeared. On a map. Showing the phone connected to the internet. For further actions I should enter into the iCloud account.

WAIT….

I was not progressing at this point. And all of a sudden there were new SMS sharing the location. Originating from FMI (Find My iPhone?), a German mobile number, an Austrian mobile numer, from "Apple Support"(?).

This was my awakening. The pickpockets were not only targeting the mobile phone. They were after digital identities…

Therefore further lessons learned:

7. Your mobile phone is not the only valuable asset! Your digital identity is as well.

8. You are in an emotionally tense situation - even that it wasn't me being robbed - I forgot about some simple actions. Only use the OEM applications and known URLs. DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINK IN AN SMS, iMessage, whatsoever! PERIOD.

9. There is still a need to support end customers on digital identities. A mechanism to see that a message comes from a known party.

And I am curious - for my own education: how are the SIM and eSIM exchange process going to work? There had been a SIM from AldiTalk ( MEDION AG ) and an eSIM from a Melita Ltd.

When you are heading to the MWC Barcelona , pay attention to your belongings. For all the times that I had been attending the show, I had been enjoying the days. Without any issues.

And if you are there - watch out for my colleagues from IDEMIA . They will be sharing more insights on how to handle Remote SIM Provisioning & Digital Identities and to improve your customers' experience. Happy to support on scheduling a meeting if you are interested. Just shout out to me.

And if you are having some further advice - please let me know in the comments.

Enjoy the show. As stated initially. Just be aware. Watch out. And it is going to be a good event!

#mwc2024 #barcelona #travel