London Mayor Boris Johnson asks Apple, Nokia and Samsung to help curb smartphone theft

FLOPPY HAIRED MAYOR OF LONDON?Boris Johnson has asked several smartphone makers including Apple, Samsung and Nokia for their help in curbing smartphone theft.

Johnson has written to a number of smartphone manufacturers asking them to use their technical knowledge to help reduce the number of smartphone thefts in London, noting that although crime in the capital city is falling as a whole, mobile phone theft is on the rise.

In the past 12 months smartphone theft has increased by 12 percent, with around 10,000 handsets being pinched every month.

In the letter, sent to Apple, Blackberry, HTC, Google, Nokia, Microsoft, Samsung and Sony, Johnson and police officials called on the firms use their expertise to reduce the number of smartphone thefts, which Johnson called a "deep concern."

"We need the companies who manufacture and supply smartphones to play their part and take this issue seriously," the letter read.

"If we are to deter theft and help prevent crimes that victimise your customers and the residents and visitors to our city, we need meaningful engagement from business and a clear demonstration that your company is serious about your corporate responsibility to help solve this problem."

Johnson went on to say that while the manufacturers are keen to promote the security of their smartphones, this doesn't mean they are safe from being stolen, and asked the firms to up their games.

"Each of your companies promote the security of your devices, their software and information they hold, but we expect the same effort to go into hardware security so that we can make a stolen handset inoperable and so eliminate the illicit second-hand market in these products.

"We hope you would support this objective. Customers and shareholders surely deserve to know that business cannot and must not benefit directly from smartphone theft through sales of replacement devices." ?

Source: http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/554/f/7127/s/2e6b7892/l/0L0Stheinquirer0Bnet0Cinquirer0Cnews0C2280A3310Clondon0Emayor0Eboris0Ejohnson0Easks0Eapple0Enokia0Eand0Esamsung0Eto0Ehelp0Ecurb0Esmartphone0Etheft/story01.htm

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