UK Police Commissioner Urges Law to Make Stolen Phones Unusable

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has asked the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, to force all phone companies to make stolen devices “unusable bricks” in order to make them harder to sell on and less desirable to steal.

London is widely regarded as the phone-snatching capital of Europe, with between 200 and 300 devices stolen each day. The city accounts for up to three-quarters of all mobile phone thefts in England and Wales.

Apple has already rolled out an update for iPhones, meaning those with the latest operating system have extra safeguards if the devices are stolen. Sensitive actions such as viewing passwords, Apple Card details, or erasing the phone now require Face ID or Touch ID, making it harder to return the devices to factory settings or change the passwords, which criminals need to do in order to sell them on.

Rowley said the Met had started sharing data with Apple to more closely track whether stolen handsets get reconnected to a phone network after they are taken.

This will make it easier to track stolen phones and help police find out what happens to them, and where they are taken.

The Met commissioner told the Press Association after an operation targeting two phone shops on Wednesday: “If we share the data we have on the phone stolen, with the data they have on things like reactivations and future uses of phones, we can get a global picture of phones being stolen, are they being reactivated, are they being broken down for parts, where they’re being exported to in the world.”

He added: “Whereas a few months ago the majority of stolen phones were being reactivated because of security flaws, now with the security improvements it’s the minority being reactivated. That means it’s harder for criminals to profit. That will help bring down the crime further.”

The Met has written to the home secretary asking for legislation to make phone companies publish data on stolen devices and whether they are reconnected, and to enforce measures to make stolen devices unusable.

Phones snatched in London are sold around the world. One recent police operation revealed a gang that had sold 40,000 stolen phones to China. The phones can be worth more in countries such as China because it has none of the government restrictions put in place by authorities there.

Rowley said: “For the first time, we are routinely sharing intelligence on stolen devices, building a joint picture of how these phones move and whether they reappear in circulation. If stolen phones cannot be reactivated, their value collapses, and so does the incentive to steal them.”

After intense criticism for a perceived lack of action in tackling phone theft, the Met has employed e-bikes, drones and live facial recognition to reduce the number stolen on London’s streets. There is a specialised live control room used by the force to identify thieves on e-bikes, with footage livestreamed from drones.

This has paid off. The Met said that between June 2025 and May 2026, the number of thefts and robberies in which phones were stolen fell by 14,000, a reduction of 18% on the previous year. In the first five months of this year there were 6,700 fewer, a drop of 20.6%.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has 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?”