According to the Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, the Metropolitan Police told Job's Mob and Google a year and a half ago about a fix that would render nicked phones useless. Despite 80,000 devices getting lifted in London last year alone, neither firm has done anything.
The coppers reckon the solution is dead simple. Prevent stolen phones from logging into iCloud or Google’s cloud services, even overseas. That would make them as useful to thieves as a chocolate teapot.
Met Police digital and data boss Darren Scates said, “We’re asking the cloud providers specifically to prevent a lost or stolen device from connecting to their cloud services. This doesn’t even need to involve the police.”
But when pressed by MPs, the tech giants refused to commit. Lib Dem MP Martin Wrigley, a former techie himself, said, “You could tomorrow stop phones that are on the IMEI blacklist connecting back to your services, if you so wish, both of you. But you won’t do it, why?”
Conservative MP and ex-Home Office minister Kit Malthouse wasn’t having it either. “It feels to a lot of people like you’re dragging your feet... and actually sitting behind this is a very strong commercial incentive. The fact that £50 million of mobile phones are stolen in London every year means that if that stopped, that would be £50 million in sales that were depressed.”
Met Detective Chief Superintendent James Conway said mobile phones are involved in two-thirds of thefts across the capital, costing insurers and punters a £50 million annually.
Around 75 per cent of those stolen devices are shipped abroad to places like Algeria, China and Hong Kong. While UK networks block phones using their IMEI numbers, it’s a different story overseas where enforcement is patchy at best.
When put on the spot, Job's Mob’s global privacy and law enforcement honcho Gary Davis claimed the company was still "evaluating the request" and denied the idea that Apple benefits from the chaos.
“I deny a suggestion that we must somehow benefit from our users suffering the traumatic event of having their phones and being disconnected from their lives,” Davis said.
He added that Apple had invested heavily in anti-theft tech but stopped short of explaining why this one simple move had been ignored.
Wrigley wasn’t convinced. “Apple and Google continue to make profit and continue to sell more phones because these phones are not removed from the system. You owe it to the customers around the world to implement this immediately. No ifs, no buts, just do it.”
Google’s Simon Wingrove offered little more than corporate filler, saying the company wanted to ensure the solution was “safe and sensible” and was open to a chat with the Home Office.
Committee chair Chi Onwurah said: “It is clear from the mood of the committee we don’t feel that either Google or Apple have a road plan to effective phone protection that doesn’t involve IMEI. The lack of urgency about the subject given the suffering it entails is also coming across to us.”
