It’s the first of a likely growing trend in consumer protection laws surrounding our technology.
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed off on the state’s “Kill Switch” law today, and the measure will go into full effect July of 2015. The law is aimed at devaluing the black and gray market for stolen smartphones. If a phone is reported stolen, there will be a process acted by the carrier which effectively renders the phone useless. The idea being, if a thief can’t easily profit from stealing a phone, they’ll be less likely to try and steal one.
While there’s always the potential for abuse with any system which can brick a phone, we’ve already seen companies like Apple institute similar features into the iPhone, preventing devices from being activated if they’re classified as stolen or missing.
Having recently dealt with local law enforcement being unable to help us retrieve a stolen phone which had some protection software on it, and even sent us a picture of the person who stole our phone, giving consumers the ability to nuke a device sounds like a step in the right direction once some of the implementation kinks are worked out.
I’ve never been able to understand why our carriers haven’t implemented similar systems on their own. Instead, smartphone theft is a rampant crime, and as many as one in three robberies involves phone theft. Carrier inaction means the legal system now needs to get involved.
Additionally Minnesota’s bill also includes a provision that stores which buy used phones can no longer pay sellers cash for the transaction, instead receiving a store credit, electronic funds transfer, or a mailed check. All sales will have to have some form of paper trail.
“Thus taking away the worth,” explained Atkins, DFL-Inver Grove Heights. “When you take away the worth, you take away the incentive. These thieves that are stealing these things no longer have the incentive to steal ’em.”