UK Wants Phone Companies to Help Stop Thefts
As Apple releases another new iPhone — the iPhone 16, announced on September 9 — lots of people will be leaving their old phones behind to get the newest model.
Those old phones could still be worth a lot of money, however. And while many people want the latest technology, others are happy to shop for secondhand phones.
In fact, the secondhand phone market is worth billions of dollars — and criminals know it.
In the UK, the government says there has been a big increase in thefts of things like phones, bags and wallets.
Over the last 12 months in England and Wales, there have been an average of more than 200 "snatch thefts" — thefts from people's hands without using violence — every day.
And the police think the secondhand phone market is partly to blame.
Now the government wants mobile phone companies to do more to make sure that stolen phones can't be used again.
Some smartphones do have features that mean they can't be used after a theft. According to the BBC, if a phone is reported to have been stolen in the UK, it can be locked so it can't be used again in the country. But it could still be unlocked in other places.
The British government said it will be speaking to phone companies to find out how they can lock phones permanently, everywhere.
The BBC adds that while criminals often just want to sell a stolen phone on the secondhand market, they may also want to use a person's data.
To protect against this, the best thing to do is to speak to the police, your phone company and your bank if your phone is stolen, so no one else can access your data — including your credit card information.
