On the heels of news that San Francisco District Attorney wants Apple to enable the Activation Lock on Apple mobile devices by default, a California senator has now disclosed his plans of putting forward a proposal to push for a new bill that will require smartphones to have a preinstalled "kill switch" that will allow users to deactivate their devices in case of theft or loss.
Mark Leno has expressed his desire to introduce a new bill in 2014 when the legislative session resumes. George Gascón, the district attorney who called on Apple to ship their devices with the Activation Lock enabled, is also supporting the senator's cause.
"One of the top catalysts for street crime in many California cities is smartphone theft, and these crimes are becoming increasingly violent," says Senator Leno. "We cannot continue to ignore our ability to utilize existing technology to stop cell phone thieves in their tracks. It is time to act on this serious public safety threat to our communities." Leno adds.
While the issue is currently a hot topic in California, the ramifications of the new bill will affect the rest of the country as well. Since smartphone manufacturers and carriers will have to deal with added to costs to comply with the new bill for their products in California, the cost effective solution would be to simply add the feature to all their products regardless of where they will be sold.
Smartphone theft is a big problem not just in California but in other states in the U.S. as well. Gascón said smartphone theft is one of the most common crimes in the San Francisco area. In fact, over 50 percent of the crimes committed in the streets of San Francisco involve smartphone theft.
If the bill is passed, smartphone owners will be able to remotely wipe their data from the phone to protect sensitive information such as names, addresses and even credit card numbers. Moreover, the kill switch can also be used to disable the phone. Once disabled, the phone can only be reactivated with a passkey or some other type of verification procedure.
