Phone crime - playing the blame game

Today the Home Office complained that not all mobile phone network operators are complying with its suggestions to make handsets less attractive to thieves.

This righteous stance fell on the same day it reported 2001 unit theft figures shot up to 700,000.

Could telcos be abstained from total blame? Yes, at least in part.

Obviously this type of thing is mostly the fault of the thieves themselves, few of whom we'd bet read silicon.com leaders.

But the HO is itself the body responsible for the police and crime prevention in the UK, so it too must shoulder responsibility.

Some 500,000 11- to 15-year-olds had their phones stolen during 2001 by thieves with an average age of 16 and this is the most difficult part of the conundrum it must deal with. Children targeting children given expensive equipment is a nightmare for any branch of law enforcement.

So can the operators be doing much more?

All but the traditional big two, BT Cellnet and Vodafone, operate in line with the Home Office's request for tighter security using each handset's International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) code.

This serial code enables an owner to call a network operator if his phone is stolen and report the IMEI number, making the SIM card inoperable.

BT Cellnet told us IMEI security is a load of rubbish. The company claimed that securing all mobiles with IMEI would cost both it and Vodafone around £16m each in network updates.

It also claimed it is now possible to reprogram a handset with a new IMEI and around 10 per cent of IMEIs aren't even unique to a particular handset, so other users could find themselves barred from their phones.

Its final excuse was that a phone barred from one network might still work on another. It's not enough to stop thieves fancying their chances.

The blame doesn't lie solely with any single party - short of saying if we didn't have muggers there wouldn't be a problem.

The HO should watch its finger pointing while the operators must be more careful with their safeguards - as indeed should every user.