California could be the first state to make kill switches mandatory on smartphones.
State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) will join fellow legislators, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, and Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck in unveiling legislation making the addition imperative The Los Angeles Times reported.
"This legislation is critical to reducing robberies," Garcetti told legislators in writing this past week The Times reported.
Smartphone thefts went up 12 percent in 2012 according to the latest obtainable numbers. The statistics make-up a third of incidents across the United States according to the Federal Communications Commission The Times reported.
"The wireless industry must take action to end the victimization of its customers," George Gascon, San Francisco District Attorney told The Times.
Over 50 percent of robberies are from people stealing hand held gadgets in San Francisco The Times reported.
"In general, we agree that it's smart to try to engage technology to improve public safety," John Doherty, a vice president industry group TechNet told The Times.
"But we are going to be very cautious about attempts to legislatively mandate future technology in products," Doherty told The Times. "That impacts consumer price. That impacts innovation. And there are always unintended consequences," Doherty told The Times.
The person who lost the phone would be able to shut it down using their username, and password if someone declares it taken the Associated Press reported.
AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless, United States Cellular Corp, Sprint Corp, and T-Mobile US Inc., are among the companies who do want to have Absolute LoJack anti-theft software on devices they make the AP reported.
"It's premature for us to comment on any potential state legislation that's not yet been introduced," Lane Kasselman, a spokesman at AT&T told The Times.
One robbery resulted in death of Megan Boken of Illinois The Times reported.
"The theft of a smartphone ended my daughter's life and forever changed mine," Boken told The Times. The upcoming legislation would "shut down the market for stolen smartphones, which will end the victimization of other innocent smartphone users and save lives," Boken told The Times.
