Legal Geek No. 25: Mandatory Phone Kill Switches?

Welcome back to Legal Geek. This week, we take a look at a new law signed into effect in California last month and how it could make cell phones more secure than ever.

https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp25

California lawmakers enacted a new law which forces all smartphone manufacturers to provide automatically enabled Kill Switch technology on all phones sold after July 1, 2015. This Kill Switch technology is like the Activation Lock on Apple products, closely related to the Find my iPhone features. These Kill Switches enable an owner of a phone to remotely lock down and "brick" the phones, erasing all data and making the phone unusable.

The primary goal is deterring theft, as upwards of 70% of all robbery and theft crimes in bigger cities like San Francisco are related to smartphones. The resale market is so lucrative on these products and they have become so ubiquitous that it should come as no surprise this is the latest consumer product to get a lot of attention from thieves. But much like technological advances used to make cars harder to steal, it's only a matter of time before legislation and technology also secures this type of personal asset from thieves.

The early results speak for themselves, as iPhone theft in places like New York City have dropped 17-20% following the addition of the automatic Activation Lock feature.

The most important part of the law is that the phones must have this Kill Switch functionality enabled upon purchase, even if the option to opt-out is provided. If you've purchased an iPhone 6, you've already seen this change. Most consumers will not take the time to opt out, which means an extra layer of security will be present on almost all phones on the market in California within a year or two. That should slow the rate of violent crime for this particular type of consumer product.

California is the biggest market in the country, so what happens there will likely also cause phone manufacturers to adopt those standards nationwide (whether or not the other states also pass similar legislation). About the only party that opposes these types of laws are phone insurance companies that stand to lose significant market share if phones are more secure and less subject to loss/theft claims being required.

Much like the Delaware data destruction law covered a couple weeks ago on this segment, this is the type of pro-consumer law that benefits us all. Kudos to California for helping advance this safety technology in the phone field.

Bottom Line: Less robberies and thefts mean a more secure society, and everybody wins in that scenario. That's a rarity in lawmaking, so enjoy it for this week.

Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy or in the comments below.