Tech bosses could stop mobile phone theft, say MPs

Tech giants including Apple, Samsung and Google are not doing enough to stop mobile phone theft, members of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee have said.

In a letter to Interior Minister Shabana Mahmud: Committee chairman Chi Onwurah accused the companies of failing to implement technical measures that would make stolen phones less valuable.

The letter follows heated committee hearingwhere MPs accused tech bosses of profiting from phone theft.

Responding to the letter, Google said it “invested in advanced anti-theft features,” including theft detection blocking, after “listening to victims and working closely with law enforcement and industry.”

Apple and Samsung were also approached for comment.

In a letter to Mahmoud, Onwurah said that during the hearing in June, the committee sought to “answer the question: Is there a way to prevent phone theft?”

“The answer, according to the committee, is yes.”

The problem of mobile phone theft is particularly prevalent in London, where 80,000 smartphones were reported stolen in 2024, up from 64,000 in 2023.

The Metropolitan Police estimated that 78% of stolen devices were later connected to overseas networks.

The use of stolen devices on UK phone networks is blocked by a unique phone identification number known as IMEI, but this is not the case globally.

Onwurah said “harsh technical measures” such as blocking access to cloud services for stolen phones taken overseas could make the devices “much less valuable.”

She also pointed to comments from Mobile UK, the trade association for UK mobile phone operators, which said blocking IMEIs in other countries was a “necessary step to dismantle the business model of organized crime”.

However, she said, in testimony, Apple, Google and Samsung avoided saying why they would not implement the technology.

“Their repeated attempts to answer questions about data security rather than devices, and their insistence that the phones were broken and sold for parts, without any evidence to back up that claim, were revealing,” she said.

“Technologies to prevent phone theft are available, and we have yet to hear a compelling reason why, with the cooperation of all parties, available solutions should not be used to reduce incentives for phone theft and undermine the market for stolen devices.”

Onwura asked the Home Affairs Minister if she would push tech giants to implement cloud blocking and also demanded the Minister provide data for the next summit on phone theft.

The summit took place in February 2025, but a follow-up meeting scheduled for May did not take place.

In June, Commander James Conway, head of the Met Police's phone theft unit, told MPs: “The replacement cost of these phones – members of the public and insurance companies have to pay to replace them – we estimate at around £50 million last year.”

Addressing Apple spokesman Gary Davies later in the same committee meeting, Conservative MP Keith Malthouse said: “The concern is that it actually feels to a lot of people that you're stalling for time, and that there's a very strong commercial incentive to sit on it.

“The fact that £50 million worth of phones are stolen in London every year means that if it stopped, sales would fall by £50 million.”

“You are able to detect all sorts of tricks in my behavior, my face and fingerprints; yet, for what appears to most people to be a relatively simple solution to the widespread and serious problem of crime in London and other capital cities, you say you have been at it for 12 years and have made no progress.”

Davis said the accusation was “a little unfair” and rejected the claim that “we are somehow profiting from our users suffering the traumatic event of their phone being stolen.”

He added that the company has invested in developing phone security features, including protection against stolen devices and a “find my iPhone” tool.

In written testimony to the commission Apple said it was concerned about the “broader privacy and security implications” of blocking stolen devices from accessing its services, but added that it was “now considering implementing IMEI blocking.”

Google argued existing security solutions offered a “robust solution” and Samsung said it has “dedicated significant resources” to addressing the problem.

Home Secretary Sarah Jones said: “Mobile phone theft is a disgraceful crime – every device stolen leaves someone without safety and peace of mind.

She said the Government was increasing the number of police officers on the streets and giving them “strong powers” to deal with offenders, but added that mobile phone companies had a “crucial role to play in stopping this”.