Apple and other smartphone manufacturers are facing co-ordinated pressure from officials in London, New York and San Francisco to tackle the rise in phone theft that is increasingly blighting cities even as other crimes plummet.
While the US and Britain have both seen a dramatic decrease in crime over the past three decades – with UK data this week showing crime at its lowest since records began – “theft from the person”, or mugging, is surging.
Scotland Yard estimates these types of offences have increased by 15 per cent in the past year, and about 10,000 phone handsets a month are stolen in London. In New York, police say so-called “Apple-picking” is the fastest-growing street crime, with 113 devices snatched or lost every minute across the whole of the US.
Boris Johnson, London mayor, is hoping to join forces with New York and San Francisco to push for an industry-standard “kill switch” that would immediately disable handsets when stolen and so diminish their attractiveness to thieves. City Hall officials met their counterparts in New York this week to try to broker cross-Atlantic collaboration on the issue.
Mr Johnson has also written to the UK heads of Apple, Nokia, Samsung, Google’s Motorola, HTC, Microsoft, BlackBerry and Sony demanding action. One of his key concerns is that Apple and other retail stores are too lax in exchanging broken smartphones that could have been stolen for fresh models. Police say one individual was found to have exchanged more than 170 stolen devices for new ones in a single London store over the course of a year. Meanwhile, theft victims who are not insured often end up buying replacement handsets.
“Customers and shareholders surely deserve to know that business cannot and must not benefit directly from smartphone theft through sales of replacement devices,” Mr Johnson’s letter reads.
US federal and state security experts this week took part in a demonstration of new theft deterrent measures on Apple and Samsung devices, as part of a “Secure Our Smartphones” campaign led by New York and San Francisco.
New York’s attorney-general Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco district attorney George Gascón said that while they were “appreciative” of the efforts made by Apple and Samsung to improve security, they were “not going to take them at their word” and would interrogate the new systems against tactics commonly employed by thieves.
Stephanie Ong Stillman of the San Francisco district attorney’s office said public pressure forced Apple and Samsung to co-ordinate with them, which they hope will accelerate the development of a kill switch across the industry.
“The question is no longer if the technology can be implemented, but when,” she said. “We hope the progress made by Apple and Samsung spurs Microsoft and Google to get in the game.”
Apple said in a statement that it had “led the industry in helping customers protect their lost or stolen devices”, since launching its Find My iPhone app in 2009.
BlackBerry and Microsoft, which also received Mr Johnson’s letter, declined to comment. – FT.com