New York and California lawmakers have asked smartphone manufacturers to create a killswitch for the phones that would make stolen iPhones and other smartphones useless to thieves. One California state senator is even trying to pass legislation that would make smartphone killswitches the law.
Cell phone crimes in San Francisco have been on the rise. Last year approximately half of all robberies in the city involved a mobile device. Additionally, cell phone theft saw an increase of 12 percent in Los Angeles. Alarmingly, several of these technology crimes have even led to death of victims.
It seems that mobile phone theft is on the rise because many times they are easy to steal and profitable on the black market. Hopefully, a law or a killswitch – or both – will have a positive effect on lowering the smartphone crime rate in cities all across the country.
