The Government, Your Mobile Phone and its Criminal Tendency

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New moves to break the link between mobile phones and crime began on 24th
May at a workshop hosted by Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker.

The workshop looked at key ways to disable a mobile phone in the following
ways:

For a service provider to disable all the functions of the handset,
including camera and MP3 player after it is reported stolen

Can the handset communicate its whereabouts to the police?

Can it be made to shut down as soon as it has been snatched automatically?

Should biometric access restrictions be rolled out to all mobile phones?

How to maximise the mobile phone for forensic data?

What can be done to prevent criminals from using mobile phones?

That seems innocent enough on the surface but the proposals look likely to
hinder the consumer even more and could see an increase in the cost of handsets.
The most innocent query has probably got the biggest ramifications for the
consumer. To prevent criminals from using mobile phones in the first place
could see the end of non -subscription pay as you use handsets or providing
some form of identity and residence when the phone is purchased, but
considering how many children have phones as a means of a security link to
their parents this would also be a hindrance.

There has been no comment on what will happen to your mobile phone when you
get you’re free upgrade either, mine normally goes to one of my children as
they get board quickly with there’s

It is further interesting to note, that they wish to be able to shut down
applications that are on the phone too, mainly the MP3 player and Camera. At first
glance you would think that this is to stop the theft of a phone, but maybe not.
Stand alone MP3 players are abundant and cheap and so are digital cameras.
Being able to shut down applications on your phone would allow the authorities
to disable your phone during a terrorist incident such as the London bombings
on the 7th July where Citizen Journalists used there phones to record the
events, many MP3 players on mobile phones also have voice recorders and the
camera doubles up as a video recorder. Obviously the emergency response is that
the transmitters are shut down so no calls can be made which may trigger
another bomb. I now for a fact many members on NP (Now Public) would not be happy if they were at a news event to find their phone, camera and MP3 player was not working because the police had decided it was too sensertive to allow.

There are also concerns over privacy and human rights over some of the aims
such as being made forensic friendly and being able to communicate its whereabouts
is wide open for tracking suspected terrorists and retrieving any information, especially
as a lot of handsets have wallets for keeping pin numbers, passwords and credit
card numbers, fine you say if they are tracking a terrorist but they could
track a lot of innocent people to work out which is a suspect and which is not,
just hope you are not having an affair at the time they track you. However
there are professions that do demand confidentiality investigative journalists,
solicitors, doctors etc all have a right to be able to go about there business
without being tracked and their private conversations listened into, not just
for their sake but there clients and the professions codes of confidentiality.

Already the network operators are blocking 80% of stolen mobile phones
within 48 hours. Home Office figures show 2 percent of mobile phones were stolen
the previous year of 800.000 people and that 7 out of 10 (69%) was the result
of the handset being left unattended. Interestingly the Home Office have
compared their strategy plans to that of Vehicle crime, from 1997 a drop of 51
percent in theft has occurred by designing engine immobilisers into the car. (British
Crime Survey http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb1007.pdf )

As Tony Blair announced today that he wants new stop and search powers
introduced before he leaves office as well as other security related clampdowns.
This proposal has again come from the government control and not out of public
demand, perhaps the 7 out of 10 people who left their mobile phone unattended realised
it was their fault.

Home Office Minister Vernon Coacker said ahead of the meeting

"Rapidly changing technologies have increased the value and variety of
handsets but at the same time given a boost to opportunistic criminals. We are
fighting back with genuinely innovative solutions. I am convinced that mobile
phone crime can best be tackled when the handset is still on the drawing board.

"I know that handset manufacturers and network operators have already
made considerable progress in tackling mobile phone crime - by blocking 80 per
cent of stolen phones within 48 hours for example - but there is much more to
do to make sure we keep one step ahead of the criminal by designing out mobile
phone crime. I want the same powerful blend of imagination and technical
expertise that creates today's exciting gadgets to be applied to the problem of
phone crime. Today's meeting marks the start of exciting times to come."

The event was organised at the University College London (UCL) Centre for
Security and Crime Science, with support from the Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Centre (EPSRC).

Director of UCL's Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science Professor Gloria
Laycock added:

"We have been stimulating the design and crime prevention agenda since
the Institute was established at UCL in 2001. I am delighted to see that the
Home Office is encouraging partnership working of this kind as it will help us
to realise the major contribution that manufacturers can make in the ongoing
fight against crime."

Key players from the mobile phone industry - manufacturers, networks,
academics and law enforcement - were challenged to imagine how the
multi-functional handsets of the future can be redesigned to be less tempting
and less useful to thieves and criminals, without making them any less
desirable to law abiding consumers.

A list of participants can be found here

http://www.cscs.ucl.ac.uk/events-1/planning-the-future-workshops/participants

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