Apple was among the first to make its kill switch technology opt-out, which helps deter thieves who... [+]
Smartphone thieves suffered a setback Wednesday when new laws took effect requiring all smartphones sold in California to come with an opt-out "kill switch," which slashes the phone's value if stolen and resold on the black market.
The legislation is the first of its kind to require that users be prompted during phone setup to enable the kill switch, which lets users "brick" their phones remotely when it is lost or stolen. And because phone manufacturers have said they won't be selling phones specific to California or Minnesota, it's essentially a nationwide change.
The laws are new. But smartphone thieves have already been suffering since last September, when Apple started making Activation Lock, its kill switch, opt-out on all phones running iOS 8. (Activation Lock was introduced as opt-in in 2013 with iOS 7.) Smartphone users have been able to remotely wipe and secure their devices for years, but few actually did, so thieves were willing to take their chances in pursuit of nabbing an unsecured phone. But the more phones that come out of the box with an opt-out kill switch, the lower a thief's chances of profit are -- leading to, in theory, the thefts disappearing altogether.
That dynamic may already be taking place. Smartphone thefts dropped to 2.1 million in 2014 from 3.1 million in 2013, a 32% decline, according to a new Consumer Reports study.
Apple was the first to proactively make the change to an opt-out kill switch when it introduced the iPhone 6 in September. Android's Lollipop operating system added a kill switch in October but left it as opt-in, which was helpful for informed users but did little to deter thieves, who operate based on odds. In the March Lollipop 5.1 release, it added Device Protection, which requires signing into the last-used Google account after a phone is wiped, though the feature could take a long time to reach all Android devices.
San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, along with other prosecutors like New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, has led the charge against companies that he said dragged their feet on making the technology opt-out. California State Senator Mark Leno authored SB 962, which was signed last year. Minnesota has a similar law taking effect Wednesday, but it does not require that the kill switch be opt-out.
"These companies had ample opportunity to implement this technology voluntarily, and on an opt-out basis," Gascon said in a statement Wednesday. "Unfortunately, they responded to the surge in robberies with rhetoric, and when it became clear that the safety of their customers wasn’t driving their decision making it was evident that we needed to act."
"We’re already witnessing a worldwide reduction in smartphone robberies following the limited implementation of this technology," Gascon added. "As this technology is implemented ubiquitously, and as older phones are slowly phased out, I expect this epidemic to become a thing of the past."
