In recent times, phone firms have been urged to help in the reduction of thefts after police data revealed that every six minutes, a mobile phone was stolen in London last year.
The Met
Police revealed that in 2022, 90,864 phones were stolen with an estimate of
almost 250 a day.
BBC reports
that the London mayor and Met commissioner have urged mobile industry bosses to
“design out” incentives to steal them.
Mobile UK,
representing UK networks, said measures were in place to “combat” theft.
Leading phone makers Apple and Samsung have been asked to comment.
In an open
letter, Mayor Sadiq Khan and Met chief Sir Mark Rowley said software designers
must “develop solutions to make this crime less rewarding”.
They urged
mobile phone providers to work with City Hall and police as new figures show
that mobile phone crime is driving the rise in robberies and thefts in the
capital with 38% of all personal robberies last year involving a phone being
stolen.
Statistics
also show nearly 70% of all thefts in London last year were related to mobile
phones.
In previous
years, car manufacturers have worked with police to substantially reduce the
thefts of car radios and sat navs by integrating them into vehicle dashboards.
Speaking on
the new data, Sir Mark said: “The current practice of allowing stolen mobiles
to be re-registered by new users within the phone industry inadvertently
enables a criminal market which drives robbery, thefts, and violent offending
in London.
“We’ve been
really clear there are root causes of violence we cannot tackle alone. We need
partners to step up to the plate and work alongside us to break this cycle of
violence.”
However,
tech expert Jake Moore expressed skepticism of what Mr Khan and Sir Mark’s have
called for, given the vast volume of mobile phones circulating in the UK.
“It would
cause a potential nightmare, and you could find people accused of owning a
stolen phone when it’s actually theirs. Proving legitimate purchases,
especially from second-hand websites that many people use, would be
challenging. I can’t see any company enforcing this. It just escalates into a bigger
problem.”
Mr. Khan
said, “The spiraling cost of living threatens to exacerbate the drivers of
violence and robberies, which we know disproportionately impact young people.
It was “simply too easy and profitable for criminals right now to repurpose and
sell on stolen phones”.
In their
remark, Mobile UK said, “We welcome the opportunity to work with the Met, the
mayor’s office, device manufacturers, and the wider industry to continue to
reduce this crime further.”
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