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The London mayor and Met Police say in the course of every six minutes, a smartphone is stolen in this city. So If you are traveling to London, it’s better to look after your smartphone.
According to the BBC, nearly 250 smartphones a day, or 90,864 phones a year, are stolen in London. City officials are now asking the manufacturers to make their devices less appealing to thieves. London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Met Chief Sir Mark Rowley urged smartphone manufacturers to “design out” incentives in their products. Additionally, software designers are required to “develop solutions to make this crime less rewarding.”
London is becoming the capital of smartphone theft in the world
The officials asked manufacturers to collaborate with the City Hall and police department to reduce crimes. The high crime rate in London has become a problem for the city authorities. Statistics show that 38% of all personal robberies in London last year involved a smartphone being stolen. Likewise, mobile phones accounted for nearly 70% of all thefts in London last year.
“The current practice of allowing stolen mobiles to be re-registered by new users within the phone industry inadvertently enables a criminal market which drives robbery, thefts, and violent offending in London.” The Met Police chief said. As per police data, young smartphone owners between the age of 14-20 are more likely to be targeted by thieves. On the other hand, most criminals involved in smartphone robberies also belong to a younger demographic.
Asking smartphone makers to “design out” their devices to prevent robberies might seem odd. Every company wants to sell more smartphones in a year. And no company would ever sacrifice its device’s features and beauty to stop criminals from stealing it. Tech expert Jake Moore also believes what the London mayor and Met Police chief proposed won’t work because companies are reluctant to enforce these policies. “It would cause a potential nightmare, and you could find people accused of owning a stolen phone when it’s actually theirs,” he added.
In previous years, car manufacturers could reduce the theft of car radios and satellite navigation gear by integrating them into vehicle dashboards. It remains to be seen if a similar plan works for the stolen smartphones in London.