Mobile phone theft has been one of the problems facing
consumers today as incidence of stolen smartphones has seen an increase over
the past few years as device get more feature-packed making them more expensive
and more enticing for buyers in the black market.
For this reason, manufacturers all over the world are now
temporarily setting their differences aside and are working together to put a
stop to mobile phone theft. The joint initiative will require manufacturers to
put a universal kill switch to all phone produced beyond July 2015.
This master kill switch will remotely brick and wipe the
phone clean of data in the event of theft. According to a previous study
conducted in the United States, around $2.5 Billion worth of insurances and
replacement cost can be saved per year if a master kill switch can be installed
on all phones in the US.
At present, Apple, Google, HTC, Huawei, Motorola, Microsoft,
Nokia and Samsung are already on board with the initiative as well as five
major US cell carriers.
