Tech giants Apple and Google 'profiting from phone thefts', MPs claim
4 June 2025, 13:54
MPs have accused tech giants Apple and Google of raking in profits from major phone-snatching operations as thefts soar.
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Both firms have been “dragging their feet" on the issue, one parliamentarian said, after the Metropolitan Police urged them to make a vital changes that they said could help reduce thefts.
The change involves blocking stolen devices from accessing their cloud services once it has been shipped abroad.
The Met, who have been urging the companies to make the adjustment since 2023, believe this would less phone thieving less attractive to criminals.
Instead, MPs say the tech giants are continuing to rake in profits while phone thefts are on the rise.
Lib Dem MP Martin Wrigley told the House of Commons' Science and Technology committee, said: “Apple and Google continue to make profit and continue to sell more phones because these phones are not removed from the system.
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"You [the companies] owe it to the customers around the world to implement this immediately. No ifs, no buts, just do it.”
Police say organised crime gangs across the UK, Algeria and China are behind the surge in thefts.
In London, There were around 80,000 recorded phone thefts in London last year.
That's up a quarter from 64,000 in 2023.
Around 80% of phones stolen are made by Apple, with 75% of devices are reportedly shipped to Algeria, China and Hong Kong.
Kit Malthouse, the Conservative MP and former Home Office minister, said: “It feels to a lot of people like you’re dragging your feet … and actually sitting behind this is a very strong commercial incentive.
"The fact that £50 million of mobile phones are stolen in London every year means that if that stopped, that would be £50 million in sales that were depressed.
"Also you would lose the income from those phones that are then reused overseas, which now runs into the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of stolen phones around the world.”
Labour's Chi Onwurah, Chair of the Committee, said: “It is clear from the mood of the committee we don’t feel that either Google or Apple have a road plan to effective phone protection that doesn’t involve IMEI.
"The lack of urgency about the subject given the suffering it entails is also coming across to us.”
Gary Davis, senior director in regulatory and legal at Apple, denied accusations that his firm is making extra cash from these crimes.
“I don’t believe we are profiting. It is necessary to refute the suggestion that we benefit from our users somehow suffering the traumatic event of having their phone stolen and being disconnected from their lives.
"We have invested many hundreds of millions in designing in these protections,” he said.
He also argued bad actors seeking to get their hands on data could gain the power to delete accounts and use this as blackmail.
Meanwhil, Google software engineering manager at Simon Wingrove said has a "robust" system that "works very well”.
He added: “We have to decide as an industry that this is a safe and sensible thing to do,” adding the his company is “open to have that discussion” with the Home Office.
A study last month revealed that nearly one in three UK adults have had their mobile phones stolen.
29 per cent of Brits were victims of phone theft in 2024, up from 17 per cent in 2023, according to Nuke From Orbit, a fintech start-up.
It comes as the Government and police look to crackdown on the growing phone theft crisis.“The current solutions — and the police response — simply do not match the scale of the problem,” James O’Sullivan, the start-up’s chief executive, said.
