collect3 Picture Safe

The contents of your mobile phone can offer a snapshot of your life, giving a thief access to all your SMS messages and candid photos. The Picture Safe iPhone app from Australian company collect3 helps address this issue by blocking unauthorised access to all your saucy (or merely private) photos.

During initial set up users are asked to choose and verify a PIN, which then becomes the password to access the photos you choose to protect. Photos can be imported through the iPhone's photo album or by taking photos from within the app itself. Importing photos can take some time and the app doesn't automatically delete photos from the core iPhone photo album, so you will have to manually delete them after importing.

If you forget your PIN you will be unable to access your photos, though collect3 has said it will alter this in a future update.

The Picture Safe interface is uncluttered and resembles the iPhone's normal Photos interface. Photos can be placed into different albums and can be displayed as a slideshow.

Apart from the PIN, there are two other security measures. Snoop Stopper will redirect a user to an alternative album of stock photos if the PIN code is entered incorrectly three times. Quick Hide lets you hide the photo you're currently viewing by double tapping the screen; the app will then display a graph.

Minds will inevitably jump to the obvious use for the app — porn — but Picture Safe has other potential uses, such securing photos of loved ones or confidential material. The low cost and simplicity of Picture Safe make it an enticing iPhone app.