New crime data shows that Apple’s
addition of a “kill switch” to its iPhones last September has sharply
reduced robberies and thefts, authorities said Thursday.
Their report from a year-old
initiative called “Secure Our Smartphones” said Google and Microsoft
will incorporate a kill switch into the next version of their operating
systems on smartphones. The three systems — Android, iOS, and Windows
Phone — are used in 97 percent of smartphones in the U.S.
New York Attorney General Eric
Schneiderman, part of the initiative, said crimes instead surged against
people carrying phones without switches intended to make them useless
to thieves.
“The statistics released today
illustrate the stunning effectiveness of kill switches, and the
commitments of Google and Microsoft are giant steps toward consumer
safety,” he said.
In New York City, robberies of
Apple products fell 19 percent while grand larcenies dropped 29 percent
in the first five months of 2014 compared with a year earlier, according
to the report. Robberies and grand larcenies involving a Samsung
smartphone, which didn’t have a kill switch during much of that time,
rose more than 40 percent. Samsung introduced a kill switch in April.
Crime data from police in San
Francisco and London, comparing the six months before Apple’s switch to
the six months following, showed similar trends, according to the
report.
In San Francisco, iPhone robberies declined 38 percent, while robberies of Samsung devices increased 12 percent.
In London, Apple thefts declined 24 percent, while Samsung thefts increased 3 percent.
San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, also part of the
initiative, said the statistics prove that a technological solution to
prevent theft was possible. He called for legislation “at all levels” to
make anti-theft solutions mandatory.
“Compared to all of the cool
things smartphones can do these days, this is not that advanced,” Gascon
said. “I believe ending the victimization of millions of Americans is
the coolest thing a smartphone can do.”
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