Six hundred commuters were interrogated at London railway stations about their mobile phone usage and storage habits. Sixteen per cent admitted to saving bank account details onto their mobile phones, while 24% used them to keep a note of their pin numbers and passwords.

Eleven percent of those interviewed kept their social security and inland revenue details on their phones, while 10% used them to store credit card information.

Of all the commuters questioned, 40% did not protect their devices with a password.

Credant also found that 99% of the commuters surveyed used their phones for business, despite 26% being specifically instructed by their employers not to do so. Seventy seven percent kept business names and addresses on their phone, while 23% use them to store customer information.

Paul Huntingdon, public sector director at Credant Technologies and adviser to many Government departments cautioned that “Once you have access to someone’s emails, passwords, birthdays, business diary, documents, children’s names and pets you can easily masquerade as that person, sending out emails under their name, read all their corporate data and get to see every personal detail of their life.”

Huntingdon goes on to warn that “People are ignorant to how easy a professional thief could take over their life and effectively destroy it. It is therefore imperative that all mobile phone users, even with the most basic handset, password protect and encrypt them.”