Make stolen phones unusable, Met Police urges tech giants

The Metropolitan Police is calling on tech firms to make stolen phones harder to reuse and prevent criminals from profiting.

The force revealed on Thursday that it had started sharing data with Apple to build a "global picture" of what happens to stolen handsets, including whether they are being reconnected to a network.

"If stolen phones cannot be reactivated, their value collapses, and so does the incentive to steal them," Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said.

Sir Mark has asked the home secretary for legislation to make phone companies publish data on stolen devices, and to enforce measures rendering handsets effectively unusable.

In working with Apple to improve security, Sir Mark said only a minority of stolen phones were being reactivated compared to a few months ago, making it "harder for criminals to profit".

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that, currently, illicit software enables phone snatchers to "factory reset" devices, which means they can be sold as if they are a new device on foreign markets.

But now, he said, Apple believes it has "cracked" the engineering problem and data is starting to show that "the vast majority of phones" stolen in recent weeks in the capital were not factory reset.

Apple recently turned an existing security setting called Stolen Device Protection on by default for iPhones in a system update (iOS 26.4).

When an iPhone user is not identified as being at a familiar location – such as their home or work – the setting delays the ability for thieves to change critical security information, like passwords or biometric info, to gain access to or wipe the device.

The delays aim to give the device owner time to access their account on another device, and mark their iPhone as lost to protect it.

Sir Mark added that the Met has also entered into an "intelligence sharing agreement" with the company, which will see the two share data to better understand criminality in London and whether security upgrades on phones need improving.

"I'd never say we're going to get down to zero crime, but this is going to make a massive difference," Rowley told the BBC. "If they can only be broken up for parts, if you start to make it harder for criminals, they will steal fewer of them."

Meanwhile, a Home Office spokesperson said the government is also taking "tough action" on phone theft, which includes "equipping police with new powers to search properties without a warrant where stolen goods have been electronically located".

It follows an ultimatum the Met Police chief gave firms in March to enforce steps which would make stolen phones less desirable for resale and reuse.

London has some of the highest rates per thousand people of personal robbery and thefts in England and Wales.

The international trade in stolen phones is worth millions of dollars, with a device stolen in London worth more in countries like China because it has none of the government restrictions put in place by authorities there.

As well as calling on tech companies to do more to tackle phone thefts, London's Metropolitan Police has employed e-bikes, drones and live facial recognition to cut the number of grabs on the capital's streets.

And according to the Met, the number of thefts where phones were stolen fell by 14,000 between June 2025 and May 2026 - down 18% on the previous year.

In Westminster, where between 69% and 72% of thefts from the person and personal robberies each week involve phones, there has been a reduction of 45.8% so far this year.

Kate Adams, senior vice-president of government affairs at Apple, said: "Keeping our users, their devices, and their data safe is at the heart of what we do.

"That includes building industry-leading security features that significantly reduce the motivation for criminals to target people in the first place."

The Met said that Samsung and Google were also making security changes to tackle the issue.

Met Police Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist has also addressed the use of drones, which he said are acting as the force's "eyes in the sky" to feed live footage to a dedicated control room to identify thieves on e-bikes.

But back in February, Twist also called on phone providers to make it harder for devices to be reprogrammed.

"At the moment, people are stealing these phones so they can be exported, largely," he said.

"They've got quite a high monetary value and at the moment they're too easy to reset and reuse and monetise, often in other countries."

Last year, the Met said it had dismantled an international gang suspected of smuggling up to 40,000 stolen mobile phones from the UK to China.

Police believe the gang could be responsible for exporting up to half of all phones stolen in London.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has also previously voiced his frustration with phone companies and operators, asking: "Why can't they have a kill switch so a stolen phone can't be used? Why can't they stop somebody having access to a cloud so a phone that's stolen is not reset and reused?"

Welcoming the Met's latest agreement with Apple, the mayor said: "Mobile phone crime won't be solved by policing alone. It also needs coordinated action from industry".

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