Mayor and Met Commissioner gather world-leading mobile phone companies to combat theft

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, Sir Mark Rowley, have convened a landmark meeting with world-leading mobile phone companies to ask them to commit to designing out mobile phone robbery.

Apple, Samsung and Google are just some of the leading mobile manufacturers that have been represented in the milestone meeting at City Hall which will include representatives from major UK mobile phone network providers.

The meeting focused on how the police, City Hall and the mobile phone industry can work better together to find the most effective deterrent and ultimately significantly reduce mobile phone robberies in London and beyond.

It follows a call to action from the Mayor of London and Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley in August for the mobile phone industry to play their part and “deliver bold and innovative technological solutions” to help tackle the rising number of robberies and thefts in the capital.

Existing security measures, including pin, fingerprint and facial ID, are not deterring criminals from stealing mobile phones which remain in high demand and are being sold and re-used in a lucrative underground criminal market. And the release of new more expensive mobile phones is having an impact on the increase in robberies and thefts in London and across the UK.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “We’ve convened leading representatives from the mobile phone industry to design out the theft and robbery of mobile phones and ultimately make London safer for everyone.

“This meeting is an important milestone to developing a practical and long-term solution to ending the menace of mobile phone crime which we know is driving violence and criminality in our communities - not just in London but across the UK.”

Met Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said: “Current mobile phone operating systems make it far too easy for criminals to steal devices, re-register them, and sell them on. This fuels a highly lucrative and profitable criminal market across the capital, and is central to the rise in thefts, robbery and violent offending we’ve seen over the last two years.

“We remain focused on driving down violence in all its forms. We’re rebuilding neighbourhood policing, using data and tech to target hotspots and arresting criminals responsible for brazenly stealing phones from the hands of Londoners every day. Just this weekend we made multiple arrests and seized more than 70 stolen phones at a shop selling them onwards.”

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden, said: “Today is a really important opportunity for real collaboration between the police, mobile phone companies and the mobile phone manufacturers in our efforts to tackle smartphone robbery.

“Using the latest technical advances, we want to establish universal security measures that are not just an opt-in, but come as standard and are fail-safe – making smartphone crime far less lucrative for potential offenders.

“These crimes often cause untold psychological, physical and financial harms to phone owners. But with the support of the industry giants we can start to design-out and prevent these robberies across the capital and beyond.”

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily

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