Phone firms ‘must bring in a kill switch’ after making it too easy for snatchers

Smartphone companies person been to halt making it casual for thieves to snatch devices and to instal ‘kill switches’.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the information features of telephone companies are to casual to beryllium disabled arsenic soon arsenic they are stolen.

She said a batch of radical ‘don’t know’ however to marque the astir of the features already disposable to them.

‘That’s wherefore we request the tech companies to support making advancement and to bash overmuch much to marque definite that there’s not an inducement to bargain phones and they tin beryllium switched disconnected consecutive away,’ Ms Cooper added.

Police whitethorn besides beryllium fixed other powers to way down stolen mobiles, arsenic they presently are incapable to participate and hunt a gathering with aggregate dwellings – contempt my Find My iPhone showing them to beryllium there.

PS Simon Gratton told Metro: ‘A Find My iPhone determination is not deemed to beryllium capable grounds for a tribunal to springiness america a warrant to hunt a property.

‘They are lone close to 3 metres, and these snatchers aren’t stupid, they cognize to enactment phones connected airplane mode truthful it lone shows the past known location, not the existent one.

‘Also if the determination shows up successful a artifact of flats, you can’t hunt each azygous spot successful the gathering conscionable to find 1 phone.’

Ms Cooper chaired a acme of constabulary and tech companies yesterday to tackle the surge.

More than 52,000 phones were stolen successful London past year, with the worst-hit borough was the City of Westminster, with 18,863 incidents reported.

Camden was the 2nd worst affected, with 4,806 incidents, followed by Southwark (4,376), Hackney (2,761), Newham (2,585), Lambeth (2,394) and Islington (2,117).

This fig made up much than fractional of reported telephone thefts successful each of England and Wales.

Police managed to retrieve 1,000 stolen devices successful the abstraction of a week.

Commander Owain Richards said: ‘We are seeing telephone thefts connected an concern scale, fuelled by criminals making millions by being capable to easy merchantability connected stolen devices either present oregon abroad.

‘By intensifying our efforts we’re catching much perpetrators and protecting radical from having their telephone stolen successful the capital. But we request assistance from partners and manufacture to bash more.

‘That is wherefore we’re moving with different agencies and Government to tackle the organised criminality driving this commercialized and calling connected tech companies to marque stolen phones unusable.’

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