Mobile Anti-Theft System

Problem

Once a phone is out of its owner's physical control, there's very little the owner can do beyond hoping it's recovered. The project set out to give a device a way to detect unauthorized access and respond to it, without turning location tracking into another privacy risk.

Solution

An Android application with real-time security monitoring, encrypted alerting, location tracking, pattern-based emergency calling, and privacy-preserving location sharing with access control, so location data only reaches an authorized recipient.

My Contribution

I designed and implemented the security monitoring, alerting, and location-sharing features, using the device's sensors to detect tampering and trigger an encrypted alert.

Technical Details

• –Android app built in Java
• –Device sensors for tamper/motion detection
• –Firebase for alerting and data sync
• –Access-controlled, privacy-preserving location sharing
• –Pattern-based emergency calling

Challenges

The core tension was between monitoring the device continuously enough to be useful and not draining the battery or over-collecting data, while making sure location data was only ever exposed to the device owner, not stored or shared more broadly than necessary.

Results

Awarded Best Project at the KEC Project Exhibition 2023. It was my first project where security and privacy constraints shaped the architecture from the start, rather than being added afterward.