Tech bosses might cease cell phone theft, say MPs

Tech giants together with Apple, Samsung and Google should not doing sufficient to cease cell phone thefts, MPs on the Science, Innovation and Expertise Committee have mentioned.

In a letter to the Dwelling Secretary Shabana Mahmood, committee chair Chi Onwurah accused the businesses of failing to place in place technical measures that will make stolen telephones much less worthwhile.

The letter follows a stormy committee listening to, the place MPs accused tech bosses of making the most of telephone thefts.

Responding to the letter, Google mentioned it had “invested in superior theft safety options” together with the theft detection lock after “listening to victims and partnering intently with legislation enforcement and trade”.

Apple and Samsung have additionally been contacted for remark.

Writing to Mahmood, Onwurah mentioned that through the listening to in June, the committee had sought to “reply the query: Is there a option to design out telephone theft?”

“The reply, within the view of the committee, is sure.”

The issue of cell phone thefts is especially prevalent in London the place, in 2024, 80,000 smartphones have been reported as stolen – up from 64,000 in 2023.

The Metroplitan Police has estimated 78% of stolen units have been later linked to abroad networks.

Stolen units are blocked from getting used within the UK by telephone networks through the use of the telephone’s distinctive figuring out quantity – often called an IMEI – however this isn’t the case globally.

Onwurah argued that “sturdy technical measures” reminiscent of blocking stolen telephones taken abroad from accessing cloud providers might make units “far much less worthwhile”.

She additionally pointed to feedback by Cell UK, the commerce affiliation of the UK’s cell community operators, who mentioned blocking IMEI in different international locations was a “essential step to dismantle the enterprise mannequin of organised crime”.

Nonetheless, she mentioned when giving proof, Apple, Google and Samsung had averted saying why they’d not implement the expertise.

“Their repeated pivots to answering questions on information safety reasonably than units, and insistence that the telephones have been damaged down and bought for components, with none proof to help this assertion, was telling,” she mentioned.

“Expertise to discourage telephone theft is offered, and we’ve got but to listen to a convincing motive why, with co-operation on all sides, the obtainable options should not be used to disincentivise telephone theft and disrupt the market in stolen units.”

Onwurah requested the house secretary if she would push the tech giants to implement cloud-based blocking and in addition pressed the minister to supply an information for the subsequent telephone theft summit.

A summit occurred in February 2025 however a follow-up assembly deliberate for Might didn’t happen.

In June, Commander James Conway, the Met Police’s telephone theft lead, instructed MPs: “The substitute worth of these telephones – members of the general public and insurance coverage firms having to pay out to exchange them – we estimate at round £50 million final 12 months.”

Addressing Apple consultant Gary Davis later in the identical committee listening to, Conservative MP Equipment Malthouse mentioned: “The priority is that, truly, it feels to lots of people like you’re dragging your toes and that sitting behind it is a very sturdy industrial incentive.

“The truth that £50m-worth of telephones are stolen in London yearly signifies that, if that stopped, £50m of gross sales could be depressed.”

“You’ll be able to detect all kinds of intelligent issues about my behaviour, my face and my fingerprint; but, for what appears to most individuals like a comparatively easy answer to an endemic and important downside of crime in London and different capital cities, you’re saying that you’ve been at it for 12 years and made no progress.”

Davis mentioned the accusation was “a little bit unfair” and rejected the declare that “we someway profit from our customers struggling the traumatic occasion of getting their telephone stolen”.

He added that the corporate had invested in designing protections for telephones together with stolen machine safety and a ‘discover my iPhone’ device.

In written proof to the committee, Apple mentioned it had considerations concerning the “wider privateness and safety implications” of blocking stolen units from accessing its providers however added that it was “now contemplating how IMEI-blocking could possibly be enacted”.

Google argued its present protections provided a “sturdy answer” and Samsung mentioned it had “devoted appreciable sources” to the problem.

Dwelling Workplace Minister Sarah Jones mentioned: “Cell phone theft is a disgraceful crime – each stolen machine robs somebody of their security and peace of thoughts.

She mentioned the federal government was placing extra police on the streets and giving them “sturdy powers” to sort out offenders however added that cell phone firms had a “essential function to play in stopping this”.