With the recent confirmation from a pilot project in London and two major cities in U.S. that the installation of ‘kill-switches’ in cellphone units dramatically resulted in the decrease of mobile phone theft, the Department of Justice — Office of Cybercrime (OOC) today called on telecommunication companies to adopt international best practices to protect the property subscribers and the lives of owners of mobile phones.

“We do not need legislation to implement this,” said Secretary of Justice Leila M. De Lima. “It is the responsibility of telcos as public utilities to prevent crimes and to ensure that technology is used to address peace and order issues,” she said.

The DOJ-OOC tasked primarily to implement the Cybercrime Prevention Act recommended the policy action and directive.

Assistant Secretary Geronimo L. Sy, head of the Cybercrime Office said that “It is a common sense solution to a specific type of crime. Commuters and consumers who work hard and save for their phones only to be victimized by criminals will benefit from a small effort from our telcos.”

The study showed that since the introduction of the kill switch feature, mobile phone theft has dropped as much as 40 percent. The result of the study is available at http://www.ag.ny.gov/pdfs/SOS%201%20YEAR%20REPORT.pdf