Today’s top-end devices already carry massive processing power and at least 128 GB of storage space, supporting high-definition video displays.

According to Gartner, a technology research and advisory company, 1.5 billion smartphones are expected to be sold worldwide this year, 7 percent more than last year.

Most of us take for granted the things we can do with our phones. But where does all that data our phone collects on us end up? “That is the big question,” Tjondronegoro said. “The problem for the future is not so much what is on your phone but what it is connected to and who has access to it … and that is the scary part.”

This was something Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, touched on at the World Business Forum in Sydney in May.

He was asked about who we should trust when it comes to our data: The companies or government?

Negroponte referred to the recent court case in the United States, in which the FBI tried to force Apple to unlock an iPhone used by an assailant in a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, last year.

The FBI abandoned the case, but as Negroponte pointed out: “What interested me is Apple said it would not open the phone, which is very different to could not. Would not means you can, but will not, which means we have to trust them (enterprises) more than government. And that bothers me.”

Contact the writer at karlwilson@chinadailyapac.com