Tech bosses could stop mobile phone theft, say MPs

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

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

The letter follows a stormy committee hearing, the place MPs accused tech bosses of cashing in on 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 in the course of 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 had been reported as stolen – up from 64,000 in 2023.

The Metroplitan Police has estimated 78% of stolen units had been later related 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 – generally known as an IMEI – however this isn’t the case globally.

Onwurah argued that “sturdy technical measures” akin to blocking stolen telephones taken abroad from accessing cloud companies might make units “far much less helpful”.

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

Nonetheless, she mentioned when giving proof, Apple, Google and Samsung had averted saying why they might not implement the know-how.

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

“Expertise to discourage telephone theft is on the market, and we have now but to listen to a convincing motive why, with co-operation on all sides, the out there 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 a knowledge for the subsequent telephone theft summit.

A summit passed off 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 interchange them – we estimate at round £50 million final 12 months.”

Addressing Apple consultant Gary Davis later in the identical committee listening to, Conservative MP Package Malthouse mentioned: “The priority is that, really, it feels to lots of people like you might be dragging your ft 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 can 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 resolution to an endemic and vital downside of crime in London and different capital cities, you might be saying that you’ve been at it for 12 years and made no progress.”

Davis mentioned the accusation was “a bit of 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’ software.

In written evidence to the committee, Apple mentioned it had considerations in regards to the “wider privateness and safety implications” of blocking stolen units from accessing its companies however added that it was “now contemplating how IMEI-blocking might be enacted”.

Google argued its current protections provided a “sturdy resolution” and Samsung said it had “devoted appreciable assets” to the difficulty.

House 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”.