According to the good people over at the US wireless industry group CTIA, they have recently made an announcement that will bring a smile to the faces of smartphone users. In this announcement, the stolen phone database which was first launched in 2012 by AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon will kick into action, where it will in fact be integrated with carriers from outside of North America. In other words, we are looking at a collaboration with international carriers, where it would allow foreign operators block stolen US device activations. Stolen smartphones from the US that are activated abroad have long been a thorn in the flesh for law enforcement officials in the US, where the stolen phone database is seemingly a white elephant, as it is unable to be of any use should the stolen smartphones be sent outside of the US, since the respective serial numbers remain undetected.
The law enforcement officials will most probably want to see the inclusion of kill switches that are then installed in handsets so that phone theft will be crippled, at least to a certain extent, but most carriers are not too happy with such a suggestion. What do you think of the whole situation, and how would you remedy it?
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