Samsung has just taken another step towards securing the data stored on your phone, adding a new feature called "Inactivity Restart". It's similar to a feature that's been available on both iPhones and other Android devices for some time, and the purpose is to automatically restart your phone if it sits around idle for too long — 72 hours to be exact.So how does this help, exactly? It's all to do with how your phone secures your data in different states of operation. Having a lockscreen can help safeguard your phone from casual snoops, but the fact that your phone is switched on and booted up means it's more at risk than it could be. Thieves or law enforcement could break in using specialist tools.But if your phone has just restarted, or has only just been switched on, accessing that data becomes a lot harder. Everything has been locked away in more secure storage, and your phone needs to retrieve it before anyone can access it. It's why you're asked to unlock your phone with a passcode or pattern, rather than biometrics, when you first switch on. By automatically restarting after 72 hours of non-activity, or at the very least no successful unlocks, it means that any stolen or seized phones will automatically lock up your data more securely. Even if the phone has been plugged in to keep the battery from running out.
