Leading smartphone manufacturers and mobile carriers have come forward together to support the smartphone anti-theft voluntary commitment.
The wireless association CTIA, which was earlier resistant to the idea of a mandatory kill switch in smartphones, has announced the “Smartphone Anti-Theft Voluntary Commitment” program that will see all new smartphone models manufactured after July 2015 come with a basic anti-theft tool either preloaded or available for download.
Steve Largent, chief executive of the CTIA, announcing the initiative said “This flexibility provides consumers with access to the best features and apps that fit their unique needs while protecting their smartphones and the valuable information they contain.”
Apple, Asurion, AT&T, Google, HTC, Huawei, Motorola, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular and Verizon are the major participants to have committed to the anti-theft agreement.
The anti-theft tool dubbed the kill switch will allow users to remotely wipe data from their devices including their contacts, photos and emails if and when a smartphone is lost or stolen. The switch will also prevent reactivation without the user’s permission, and restore data and operability if the phone is recovered.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney, George Gascon welcomed the CTIA’s latest move.
Schneiderman and Gascon issued a joint statement that read “While CTIA’s decision to respond to our call for action by announcing a new voluntary commitment to make theft-deterrent features available on smartphones is a welcome step forward, it falls short of what is needed to effectively end the epidemic of smartphone theft.”
“We strongly urge CTIA and its members to make their antitheft features enabled by default on all devices, rather than relying on consumers to opt-in.”
Earlier this month, William Duckworth, an associate professor at Creighton University, published his recent research report that claimed widely implemented kill switch technology to save American mobile users up to $2.6 billion per year, as a result of reduced phone theft cases.
