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The debate around kill switch technology — software that acts as a tool to disable smartphones if stolen — has been a hot button topic for U.S. state and federal regulators, phone manufacturers, and the nation’s wireless carriers over the last year. While states, and even the Federal Communications Commission, have gotten more aggressive during the last few months regarding setting up regulations to require phone manufacturers and carriers to comply with potential kill switch laws, carriers and phone manufacturers have been putting them off and less-than-eager to respond. But the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association has finally released a voluntary agreement that explains the commitment of the wireless industry to provide anti-theft tools in phones starting July 2015.
VISUAL CONTEXT: PHONE THEFT IN CALIFORNIA
Source: 2013 Data Breach Investigation Report by Verizon
Among the companies that the CTIA lists that have signed their names to the document are: Apple, AT&T, Google, HTC America, Huawei Device USA, Motorola Mobility, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon Wireless.
The commitment requires those signers to abide by certain provisions when manufacturing devices after July 2015. They promise to include “a baseline anti-theft tool that is preloaded or downloadable on wireless smartphones” which will give the devices the capability to remote-wipe the authorized user’s data, render the smartphone inoperable to an unauthorized user, prevent reactivation without authorized user’s permission, and reverse the inoperability if the smartphone is recovered by the authorized user and restore user data. These capabilities are also to come at no extra cost to U.S. consumers.
Still, some lawmakers claim that this baseline step on the part of the CTIA is not sufficient to prevent cell phone theft — a problem that has gotten worse over the years as smart devices have proliferated. The FCC has stated that 30% to 40% of all robberies that happen in major urban areas include phone theft. And at the core of the commitment’s criticism is the notion that this mandate should not be a voluntary one, but the default ruling for all device sales. InformationWeek quotes New York attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman and San Francisco district attorney George Gascón:
We strongly urge CTIA and its members to make their anti-theft features enabled by default on all devices, rather than relying on consumers to opt-in. The industry also has a responsibility to protect its consumers now and not wait until next year.
Indeed, California’s drafted regulations that have been proposed so far this year, and heavily considered would require all phones sold in California to include kill-switch technology as of January 1, 2015. Considering California is home to Silicon Valley, such a regulation would effectively include many of the major smartphones in the U.S. market. But even if the CTIA’s baseline commitment is not sufficient to rule out the majority of phone thefts, at least it is a step in the right direction that has official support from many major phone manufacturers and wireless carriers.
