Good news. If you have a smartphone you likely have to worry less about it being stolen thanks to “kill switch” technology. That’s the ability for you to remotely “kill” the phone rendering it useless. Thus giving it no value to a thief. A story in Reuters highlights this citing New York, San Francisco, and London and their experience with iPhone thefts as examples:
The number of stolen iPhones dropped by 40 percent in San Francisco and 25 percent in New York in the 12 months after Apple Inc added a kill switch to its devices in September 2013. In London, smartphone theft dropped by half, according to an announcement by officials in the three cities.
“We have made real progress in tackling the smartphone theft epidemic that was affecting many major cities just two years ago,” said London Mayor Boris Johnson.
Johnson, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman were among numerous officials arguing for new laws mandating the kill switches.
In California, where a law mandating kill switches has yet to go into effect, smartphone theft is dropping because some manufacturers have already started installing the software-based switches on the devices they sell, Gascon said.
“The wireless industry continues to roll out sophisticated new features, but preventing their own customers from being the target of a violent crime is the coolest technology they can bring to market,” Gascon said.
Apple is definitely on the front end of this, but others are catching up. Largely because of laws requiring the implementation of such technology. That in my opinion is going to benefit all smartphone users whether you have a “kill switch” or not. That’s because thieves can’t tell from a distance if your phone has a “kill switch” or not. That makes smartphones as a whole less attractive. Still, you want to have a “kill switch” on your phone so that you can be assured that your personal info is erased should you be unfortunate enough to have your smartphone stolen.
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Smartphone Theft Falling Due To “Kill Switches”
Good news. If you have a smartphone you likely have to worry less about it being stolen thanks to “kill switch” technology. That’s the ability for you to remotely “kill” the phone rendering it useless. Thus giving it no value to a thief. A story in Reuters highlights this citing New York, San Francisco, and London and their experience with iPhone thefts as examples:
The number of stolen iPhones dropped by 40 percent in San Francisco and 25 percent in New York in the 12 months after Apple Inc added a kill switch to its devices in September 2013. In London, smartphone theft dropped by half, according to an announcement by officials in the three cities.
“We have made real progress in tackling the smartphone theft epidemic that was affecting many major cities just two years ago,” said London Mayor Boris Johnson.
Johnson, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman were among numerous officials arguing for new laws mandating the kill switches.
In California, where a law mandating kill switches has yet to go into effect, smartphone theft is dropping because some manufacturers have already started installing the software-based switches on the devices they sell, Gascon said.
“The wireless industry continues to roll out sophisticated new features, but preventing their own customers from being the target of a violent crime is the coolest technology they can bring to market,” Gascon said.
Apple is definitely on the front end of this, but others are catching up. Largely because of laws requiring the implementation of such technology. That in my opinion is going to benefit all smartphone users whether you have a “kill switch” or not. That’s because thieves can’t tell from a distance if your phone has a “kill switch” or not. That makes smartphones as a whole less attractive. Still, you want to have a “kill switch” on your phone so that you can be assured that your personal info is erased should you be unfortunate enough to have your smartphone stolen.
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This entry was posted on February 11, 2015 at 9:21 am and is filed under Commentary with tags theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.