YouGetItBack is a Cork based company that offers a service to help return a lost product, particularly lost data products such as mobile phones, PDA’s and laptops. But the electronic service can also be used for many other products such as keys! The company is now upgrading its ‘return to Owner’ tag service to an electronic equivalent to prevent the loss of mobile phone data.

Yougetitback.com’s e-tag, an application for mobiles and PDAs that prevents non-user calls being made and provides a tracking system in the event of a device being lost or stolen. The e-tag service also incorporates a denial of service, remote delete, data backup and recovery and guaranteed replacement functions.

When a mobile or PDA is lost, users visit Yougetitback’s website and activate the e-tag wallpaper on their lost electronic device. Once activated, the wallpaper sits on the phone screen and only allows the Yougetitback’s 24x7call centre to be contacted. Finders of lost devices are incentivised to return the items via a financial reward.

Yougetitback offers a remote backup and delete facility for with mission-critical information. In the event that a phone is not returned, the company can store and transfer contact information to new phones.

Managing director Frank Hannigan claimed that 75 per cent of lost mobiles that are registered with the service are recovered.

He said e-tags had an advantage over the current Central Equipment Identity Register scheme operated by the GSM organisation, which simply blocked handsets, meaning that they are disposed of with out any effort to return to its owner.

The e-tag service also offers denial of service, remote delete, data backup and recovery and guaranteed replacement. Members of the scheme receive a voucher to arrange a swift replacement, minimising the downtime that lost phone can cause.