‘Kill Switch’ Brings Down Smart Phone Thefts in Major Cities

A major change has finally come along in the number of cellphone thefts occurring in big cities. For the better, these thefts have declined tremendously in a few places since manufacturers began using “kill switches”, which permit the phones to be shut down remotely if they have been stolen.

As per authorities, there has been a steep drop of 40 percent in the number of stolen iPhones in San Francisco and 25 percent in New York in the 12 months after Apple Inc. embraced a kill switch to provide better security in its devices in September 2013. The smartphone thefts in London has dramatically dropped almost by half as per the announcement made by officials in the three cities.

It was time that the smartphone theft epidemic was offered a successful counter and looking at the statistics, it seems the ‘kill switch’ has helped a great deal.  Attorneys in New York and San Francisco are among the various other officials who are already arguing for new laws that would mandate the kill switches. California is one of the places that is yet to see a law mandating kill switches. However, smartphone theft still continues to drop in that area because some manufacturers have already begun installing the software-based switches on the devices sold by them. It is given that the wireless industry will continue to roll out sophisticated and fresh looking features, but saving their own customers from falling prey to smartphone thieves is the most useful technology that they can offer to the market.

California’s law, which is one of the nation’s strongest, received huge support from California prosecutors and law enforcement agencies who had high hopes attached to the ‘kill switch’, believing that it could help reduce the incidence of smartphone thefts. Going by the National Consumers League, mobile devices were pilfered from approximately 1.6 million Americans in 2012. In California alone, mobile device thefts accounted for more than half of all crimes taking place in areas like San Francisco, Oakland and other cities.

As of now, Apple, Samsung and Google have implemented kill switches on their handheld devices. Microsoft on the other hand is expected to roll out an operating system for its Windows phones that has one this year.