Home Secretary hosts summit to tackle ‘industrial scale’ of mobile phone theft

Friday’s summit (February 7) comes as street crime has soared by 43 per cent nationwide, driven by a significant rise in snatch thefts, including mobile phones.

A recent week-long crackdown on mobile phone theft by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) saw more than 1,000 stolen handsets seized and 230 people arrested.

The force specifically targeted those responsible for the theft, handling and onward criminal supply or exportation of smartphones in an effort to disrupt the £50 million-a-year trade in stolen devices.

The week of coordinated activity across London included increased patrols and plain-clothed operations in hotspot areas, including the West End and Westminster, where nearly 40 per cent of phone thefts occur.

One of the items raised at the summit by the MPS’s Deputy Commissioner Dame Lynne Owens was strengthening security on phones so stolen devices cannot be easily resold. The force wants to work with industry to prevent stolen phones from being able to re-connect to cloud services and make IMEI numbers accessible from the lock screen of all smartphones.

Commander Owain Richards, who is leading the MPS’s response to phone thefts, said: “We are seeing phone thefts on an industrial scale, fuelled by criminals making millions by being able to easily sell on stolen devices either here or abroad.

“By intensifying our efforts we’re catching more perpetrators and protecting people from having their phone stolen in the capital. But we need help from partners and industry to do more. That is why we’re working with other agencies and government to tackle the organised criminality driving this trade and calling on tech companies to make stolen phones unusable.”

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper says she will legislate where necessary to ensure police have the powers they need to treat this with the seriousness it warrants, and police are expected to agree to step up enforcement activity nationwide.

This will include better use of intelligence to drive more hotspot policing and targeted operations, particularly around high-risk periods such as Christmas and when a new phone is released.

She urged companies including Apple, Google and Samsung, and law enforcement to join forces to build on existing anti-theft security measures and help design out and disincentivise phone theft, by making phones effectively worthless to criminals.

Ms Cooper also called for a much “deeper dive” on all available sources of data and intelligence to build a much more comprehensive diagnosis of the problems and scale of the criminal market, to drive joint solutions.

All in attendance agreed to greater collaboration between police and tech by significantly boosting intelligence sharing, on both sides, and to reconvene in three months’ time.

Ms Cooper said: “Over the last few years, mobile phone thefts have shot up – often driven by organised crime – leaving our streets feeling less safe. That has to change.

“I brought together tech companies and law enforcement today to pursue stronger action against organised criminality and to prevent phone theft on our streets. It was a significant step forward in addressing the need to come together as partners to disrupt, design-out and disincentivise these damaging crimes.

“At the same time, this government is doubling new investment into neighbourhood policing to tackle theft on high streets and in our communities, to keep our streets safe.”

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “The Met’s hard-working officers have stepped up their work in London to prevent and tackle mobile phone theft – with patrols and plain-clothed operations in hotspot areas and are increasingly using phone-tracking data and intelligence. This work is being backed up with record funding from City Hall which is boosting neighbourhood policing in our communities.

“But we know that we can’t arrest our way out of mobile phone crime – which has become a national and international issue and needs innovative solutions.

“I welcome recent security updates by leading mobile phone companies that we supported and we spoke today about how we can build on those and work together to ‘design out’ the scourge of mobile phone crime to build a safer London for all.”