Ministers could force phone companies to add 'anti-theft protections'

Policing minister Sarah Jones has said that unless there is a drop in the number of mobile phones being stolen, the government could force phone companies to add "anti-theft protections" to their products.

Writing to the Science and Technology Committee, , external she said the Home Office had so far chosen to work collaboratively with the tech giants to reduce thefts, but would consider legislation if she did not see progress.

Phone thefts have been particularly prevalent in London, but numbers are starting to fall.

Samsung said it was "fully committed" to protecting its customers and had "worked quickly to make a significant amount of security enhancements to help address this issue".

Apple said it had "led the industry in protections and features to deter theft".

Jones' letter comes months after Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley urged the government to compel all phone companies to make stolen devices "unusable bricks".

Speaking to the BBC in June, Sir Mark said the market for stolen phones relied "on the fact that security hasn't been good enough on these devices" allowing stolen phones to be reset using "dodgy software" and resold as new.

However, he added that Apple - the biggest seller of mobile phones in the UK - had been able to "crack" the engineering problem and since then the "vast majority" of phones stolen in London had not been reset.