"We are working with the leaders of the Secure Our Smartphones (SOS) Initiative to incorporate the perspective of law enforcement agencies," said Samsung spokesperson Jessica Redman. Samsung said it is co-operating with Gascon, Schneiderman and the carriers on an anti-theft solution but declined to comment specifically about the e-mails. This is a solution that has the potential to end the victimisation of their customers." "These e-mails suggest that the carriers are rejecting a technological solution so they can continue to shake down their customers for billions of dollars in (theft) insurance premiums," Gascon said.
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One e-mail in August said Samsung had pre-installed kill switch software in some smartphones ready for shipment, but carriers ordered their removal as a standard feature. Samsung officials told the San Francisco district attorney's office in July that carriers were resisting kill switches, and prosecutors have recently reviewed e-mails between a senior vice president at Samsung and a software developer about the issue. Lost and stolen mobile devices - mostly smartphones - cost consumers more than $30bn in 2012, according to a study cited by Schneiderman in June. Gascon, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and other law enforcement officials have been demanding that manufacturers create kill switches to combat surging smartphone theft across the country.Īlmost one in three US robberies involve phone theft, according to the Federal Communications Commission. The wireless industry says a kill switch isn't the answer because it could allow a hacker to disable someone's phone. San Francisco - Samsung Electronics, the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, has proposed installing a built-in anti-theft measure known as a "kill switch" that would render stolen or lost phones inoperable, but the biggest US carriers have rejected the idea, according to San Francisco's top prosecutor.ĭistrict Attorney George Gascon said Monday that AT&T, Verizon Wireless, United States Cellular, Sprint and T-Mobile US rebuffed Samsung's proposal to preload its phones with Absolute LoJack anti-theft software as a standard feature.
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