Attorney General Masto Signs Onto Global Coalition Urging Smartphone Industry to Protect Consumers


November 12, 2013

Coalition Encourages Smartphone Makers to Protect the Safety of Consumers

    Carson City, NV – Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto today signed onto a letter urging three of the leading smartphone manufacturers Google/Motorola, Samsung and Microsoft to develop a technological means to protect smartphone users by drying up secondary markets for stolen devices.

      “It is important that we make every effort to protect Nevadans from potential threats,” said Masto. “We must find an effective way to combat the rise in violent street crimes involving smartphone thefts.”

        Masto is now a member of the Secure Our Smartphones (S.O.S.) Initiative, a groundbreaking effort to encourage the smartphone industry to implement a meaningful solution to end a disturbing trend of robberies involving mobile communication devices, known as “Apple Picking”.

          Launched earlier this year, the S.O.S. Initiative is an international coalition of prosecutors, police chiefs, state and city comptrollers, and public safety activists co-chaired by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

            Even as most types of property crime are falling, in communities worldwide, the theft of smartphones has spiked dramatically. In the United States, one in three thefts involves a mobile communications device. Consumer Reports estimates that 1.6 million Americans were victimized by smartphone thieves in 2012.

              Street-level thieves feed a massive global marketplace for stolen phones that is too large or lucrative for any single community to stop. Mobile devices that are reported stolen in the United States and are no longer able to access domestic cell networks can be reactivated to work in foreign countries. In Hong Kong, for example, iPhones are worth upward of $2,000 apiece.

                The states that signed on to the S.O.S. Initiative are: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, and Vermont, as well as the territories of Guam and Puerto Rico. They join the eight current S.O.S. Initiative members: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska and New York.

                  A copy of the letter sent by the attorneys general to smartphone manufacturers can be read here.

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