the Advanced  Trusted Environment recommendations document from the mobile industry's  device requirements body, OMTP. This will lead to enhancements in the  underlying security of mobile phones over the next few years and are the  results of two years' worth of effort by the major players in the mobile  phone industry.

In welcoming the recommendation, the Home Secretary stated "I am pleased  that the mobile industry continues to show its commitment to enhance the  security of mobile phones and in particular that a key part of the OMTP  requirements is increasing hardware security so that hackers cannot profit  from stolen phones by changing their unique identity."

The requirements are contained in a 200 page recommendation entitled  'Advanced Trusted Environment: OMTP TR1'. This publication and its  companion document 'Security Threats on Embedded Consumer Devices' are the  latest in a series of initiatives taken by industry over the past few  years aimed at ensuring the security in mobile phones remains resistant to  tampering and exploitation by hackers.

The recommendation looks at a number of key areas to protect mobile  devices as they begin to support such features as pay-per-view TV and  mobile commerce transactions. Also included are enhancements to existing  hardware security in phones, providing the underpinnings to key virus and  malware protection in phones provided by an Application Security  Framework. To achieve this, the document outlines a series of tools and mechanisms designed to enhance current security processes in technical  areas such as: Secure Data Storage for protecting sensitive information, Trusted Execution Environments for isolating and protecting sensitive  software, Flexible Secure Boot and Runtime Integrity Checking for  detecting whether the device has been tampered with, and Secure User Input  / Output to ensure the integrity of data on user interfaces.

Detective Superintendent Mick McNally, head of the National Mobile Phone Crime unit said that "Technology is increasing at an incredible rate. We  need to ensure that the incentives for people to steal mobile phones are  taken away. This is a continual process and the National Mobile Phone  Crime Unit will continue to work closely with industry on ensuring that  future technologies such as m-commerce are secured against future threats."

Jack Wraith, the Chairman of the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum said "I am encouraged by the work of the OMTP and its support to ensure that customers using mobile devices can continue to do so in a secure and safe environment. MICAF has over the last five years worked closely with all parties to improve the security standards of mobile phones and in particular have put in place processes and procedures to ensure that when a phone is stolen and reported to a customer's home network it is blocked so that it is no longer of any use to a thief. These enhanced security standards will go a long way to ensure we stay a step ahead of the people out there who are consistently trying to circumvent the security processes and procedures in place and allow us to maintain the robustness and  integrity of the mobile handset for some years to come."

Professor Michael Walker FREng, Director of Vodafone Group Research and Development said: "Vodafone is committed to delivering reliable and secure services to our customers as well as protecting them from mobile phone crime, and we are pleased to back the OMTP in rolling out greater levels of security across the industry. We have actively supported the new OMTP recommendations for hardening mobile phones against potential hacking threats and for securing new mobile services such as mobile TV and payments, and look forward to the widespread adoption of these recommendations in mobile devices."

Sir David Brown, Chairman of Motorola Ltd stated that "Motorola welcomes the operator aligned handset security requirements that TR1 represents. We see it as essential that manufacturers work with industry organisations such as OMTP to ensure security standards keep pace with the evolving functionality of our devices. As operator and consumer take up of m-commerce and multimedia initiatives increase there will be an ever greater need for protection of our customers' data and services."

About OMTP
OMTP is a forum funded by companies from across the mobile phone value chain, set up with the aim of simplifying the customer experience of mobile data services. OMTP is backed by many of the largest mobile operators and serves the needs of every link in the mobile phone value chain by gathering and driving mobile terminal requirements. The group defines requirements that enable mobile devices to have a standardized application interface and consistent user experience across multiple devices. OMTP recommendations benefit carriers, content providers, middleware vendors and handset manufacturers to develop open and compatible mobile devices. For more information, visit http://www.omtp.org.

The recommendations are available at http://www.omtp.org/publications.html.