The UK government wants Apple to fix its iPhone theft problem so it doesn't have to

The complete iPhone 15 lineup at Apple's Regent Street store in London, U.K.
(Image credit: Apple)

Officials in the United Kingdom want Apple and other phone makers to find a way to stop people stealing phones on the streets of London, with the assumption being that they can just "design out" the problem.

That's what London Mayor Sadiq Khan and police chief Sir Mark Rowley were reportedly ready to ask of Apple, Samsung, and Google at a meeting held on Tuesday.

The move comes as London grapples with a 28% 12-month increase in mobile phone thefts in the capital city with 157 phones being stolen on average every single day. That equates to a massive 57,174 a year.

'An important milestone'

The Daily Mail reports that Kahn sees the meeting with Apple and other companies as "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."

Khan believes that rather than police tackle the thefts themselves, Apple should work to make it harder and less profitable for criminals to sell their stolen goods. Right now, he says, it's simply too easy for them.

"That must change and is why, alongside strengthening neighborhood policing and record investment in supporting the police to go after the worst offenders, the Commissioner and I are now working closely with the mobile phone industry to develop innovative and technological solutions that make a stolen phone far less desirable and usable by thieves," Khan said,

High-value devices, like Apple's best iPhones, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro, are easy targets for thieves as people walk around London making calls and using them for navigation. Police commissioner Rowley says that arrests have been made, but that "until we design out the ability for phones to be used in the way they currently are, we will be stuck in a vicious circle."

Apple's iOS software already offers strong built-in protections against theft. You can use Apple's Find My app to locate a lost or stolen device. Lost Mode lets you lock the phone and display a message stating the phone is missing, and you can even erase your iPhone remotely. 

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.

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