Sadiq Khan calls on industry for help as mobile phone stolen every six minutes in London

By Noah Vickers, Local Democracy Reporter 

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley have called on the mobile phone industry to help reduce phone thefts – by “designing out” the incentives to steal them.

The pair said in a letter to company bosses they needed the “collaboration and expertise” of the phone manufacturers and software designers “to develop solutions to make this crime less rewarding”.

According to statistics by the Met, some 90,864 phones – equating to almost 250 a day, or one every six minutes – were stolen across the capital in 2022.

In their letter, Mr Khan and Sir Mark said: “Whilst relentless work to pursue perpetrators and the worst offenders will continue, we know we cannot arrest our way out of the issue.

“Much more can be done to prevent mobile phone theft by making it harder for stolen phones to be re-used and registered for services not just on carrier networks but also for services provided by hardware and operating systems vendors.”

Mr Khan said: “This is the commissioner and I saying to mobile phone companies – those are the manufacturers and the networks – ‘can we work together, using your innovation, to make a stolen phone almost worthless for somebody trying to steal it?’

“Because what we do know is, criminals steal the mobile phone, they repurpose it, and then they sell it on.

“We’ve seen through recent history how working with car manufacturers, we made a car stereo almost worthless, because we ‘designed it out’, by making sure car manufacturers had the stereo in the dashboard so it couldn’t be stolen.

“But also working with car manufacturers, we ‘designed out’ sat-navs being stolen as well, and we’re hoping that that can-do attitude of mobile phone companies, networks, will mean that it wouldn’t be worth a robber or a thief stealing a mobile phone.”

According to City Hall, mobile phone crime is driving the rise in robberies and thefts in the capital, with 38 per cent of all personal robberies last year – equating to more than 9,500 offences – involving a phone being stolen.

Nearly 70 per cent of all thefts in London last year related to mobile phones.

Sir Mark said the Met was working to bring the number of offences down, by targeting London’s theft hotspots and boosting neighbourhood policing in high streets and local communities, as part of the New Met for London plan.

Police data shows that young people are disproportionately involved in robberies, both as victims and perpetrators, with those aged between 14-20 particularly at risk of being targeted by criminals.

Sir Mark said: “I think they’re seen perhaps as an easy target for the offenders.

“This is about protecting everyone, and over the summer particularly, when kids aren’t in schools we’re running lots of operations to protect them as well.”

Pictured top: Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (Picture: Noah Vickers)