One of Windows Mobile 6’s more interesting new features (and it doesn’t have many) is the ability to encrypt data on a storage card. Ah, but pay close attention to some gotchas in these two blog entries from Microsoft Windows Mobile staffers…

Jason Langridge’s WebLog – MR Mobile!: Storage card wipe and encryption – What’s the deal?

Windows Mobile Team Blog (Scott): Windows Mobile 6 Storage Card Encryption FAQ

The scarier info comes from the FAQ above. Why scary? Consider this… If you forget your PIN, the only way to recover is from an escrowed recovery PIN stored on an Exchange Server. But, what if you don’t use Exchange Server? Ah, you see the problem there.

What if the Windows Mobile device is hard reset? Um, basically the response is tough luck.

The moral to this story? If you choose to use storage card encryption, make sure you understand all possible consequences and create manual policies and procedures to make sure you can get access to data on storage cards used in devices under your control.