The “Secure Our Smartphones” initiative has been brought to attention by U.S. prosecutors and other groups to help curb the theft of these mobile devices. A recent article from Network World website discusses this topic. Installing so called “Kill Switches” is one of the ideas that will disable smartphones if they have been lost or stolen. There has been a growing crime rate for phone theft in which anti-theft features could help derail criminals in the desire of stealing these mobile devices.
Apple plans to provide the iPhone5 with an “Activation Lock” feature (available for iOS7) in which a user will need to provide a username and password to enable a locked or disabled phone. Samsung plans to provide the Galaxy S4 model with a “LoJack” for Android FEATURE. Both of these features will be tested and are intended to make it very difficult to resell a stolen or lost smartphone. There has been debate on whether the activation lock is enough to curb the criminal activity and may not be as effective as a kill switch ability.
For more information read this article from Network World – Click Here