Security experts at Venafi estimate that 67,000 mobile phones are likely to be lost or stolen during the London Olympics, according to a company press release.

The numbers of smartphones and other portable networked devices have exploded over the past few years, the release says. As such, this year’s Games will see the largest-ever risk of corporate and personal data loss during an Olympics period, with an estimated 214.4 terabytes of potentially sensitive data likely to be lost or stolen – the equivalent of 200 million books’ worth of data.

Over any two-week period, 50,000 mobile phones are lost or stolen in London. During the Olympics, the total population in London is expected to swell by a third as an extra million people flood into the subway every day – leading, Venafi anticipates, to an additional 17,000 lost or stolen phones over the two-week Olympics.

Of that, an estimated 40 percent of mobile devices are smartphones (approximately 26,800). These figures do not include the even higher data volumes at risk from the loss of theft of other mobile devices, such as laptops or tablets.

Plus, the press release states, the recent BYOD (bring your own device) phenomenon means that people are carrying more personally-owned devices at any given time than ever before, but these powerful, network-enabled devices can access, process and store a great deal of data, much of it valuable and often regulated business data.

Data from Venafi

Average number of lost or stolen devices in 17-day period in London:

• In December 2010, 20,000 mobiles were lost or stolen every day in the UK¹. For the 17-day period of the Olympics this makes 20,000 x 17 = 340,000
• UK population = 65 million; London population = 7.8 million
  Therefore 340,000 x 7.8 / 65 = 40,800 mobiles lost in 17-day period
• Since 2010, Android and iPhone sales have soared. The number of lost and stolen devices during the two-week Olympic period can therefore be reasonably estimated at 50,000

Predicted increase of lost or stolen devices during the Olympics:

• Approximately 3.04 million passengers travel on the tube every day². With a predicted increase of one million extra passengers per day during the Olympics³, this means we can anticipate a one-third increase, placing the total number of lost or stolen devices during the Olympics at around 50,000 + 17,000 = 67,000.

Predicted increase of lost or stolen devices during the Olympics:

• Approximately 3.04 million passengers travel on the tube every day². With a predicted increase of one million extra passengers per day during the Olympics³, this means we can anticipate a one-third increase, placing the total number of lost or stolen devices during the Olympics at around 50,000 + 17,000 = 67,000.

Estimated amount of data on lost and stolen devices during the Olympics:

• Forty percent of mobile phones now are smartphones⁴. Therefore of the lost or stolen 67,000 phones, 26,800 are likely to be smartphones.
• The capacity of most smartphones is at least eight gigabytes. Therefore 26,800 smartphones could equal about 214.4 terabytes of lost or stolen data during the Olympics.
• One megabyte equates to one book , equaling 214.4 million books in lost data