Tech giants need to do more to bring in technical measures that could “design out” street phone theft, UK politicians have said.
Phone theft has become an increasing concern in recent years, especially in London where around 80,000 handsets were stolen last year, according to the Metropolitan Police.
Many of the devices end up being shipped overseas, with the Met alleging earlier in October that one smuggling network had sent up to 40,000 stolen phones from the UK to China in the past year.
The Commons science, innovation and technology committee has now written to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to express concern that companies including Apple, Samsung and Google are not taking steps to prevent stolen handsets connecting to cloud accounts in foreign countries.
Such a move would make stolen handsets much less valuable if shipped overseas, argue the MPs.
Committee chairwoman Dame Chi Onwurah said: “Given the exploding growth of phone theft, it’s clear existing deterrents from tech companies are not working.”
In evidence to the committee, Apple said it was considering measures to allow for remote blocking of stolen devices.
But the tech giant had “concerns with this approach if wider privacy and security implications are not sufficiently considered”, adding there was no “silver bullet” to preventing theft.
Google insisted its existing protections offered a “robust solution”, while Samsung told the committee it made “significant contributions” to device security through its research.
Ms Onwurah said: “Apple has told us there is no silver bullet to stop phone theft, but there are clearly technological solutions that can help deter it.
“The committee has yet to hear any convincing reasons why this hasn’t been implemented. Tech companies argue that phone theft is primarily for parts, but there’s little evidence to support this. If this was the case, these technical measures wouldn’t be needed-but they clearly are.”
The MPs on the committee also expressed scepticism at companies’ claims in written evidence to the committee that phones were mainly being sold for parts, pointing to figures from the Metropolitan Police that 78 per cent of stolen devices were later connected to overseas networks.
“Their repeated pivots to answering questions about data security rather than devices, and insistence that the phones were broken down and sold for parts, without any evidence to support this assertion, was telling,” said the MPs.
They told the Home Secretary they would “support a robust stance on this issue from the government” and urged her to convene a phone theft summit with tech companies and the police.
Ministers held such a summit in February but a follow-up meeting planned for May did not take place.
Apple, Google, Samsung and the Home Office have been contacted by The National for comment.
The Met Police has sought to get on top of offences in tackling thieves on the streets and the gangs trading in stolen devices.
The force recently announced its largest operation yet to tackle phone theft in London led to the discovery of 1,000 iPhones in a warehouse near London's Heathrow Airport, which led to the busting of a suspected international smuggling gang.
A Google spokesman said: "For years Android has invested in advanced theft protection features, including the industry’s first Theft Detection Lock and Offline Device Lock, to help prevent theft and block stolen devices.
"We’ve built and evolved these features by listening to victims and partnering closely with law enforcement and industry."
