Smartphone of statewide importance California supports robbed users, The Washington Post warns
Smartphone of national importance: California supports robbed users, The Washington Post warns of full surveillance
We live in an era of mobility and nothing can deny it. A smartphone sometimes holds almost all of our life's possessions, or at least a huge fraction of them – our banking app, saved login passwords, all emails, contact numbers and private SMS or instant messaging messages. The state of California has just introduced a bill to protect the privacy of those robbed of their phones.
However, there is also a dark side of the coin when it comes to nanny states. As The Washington Post warns, more and more states are deciding to purchase systems that allow full surveillance of citizens' phones. They can be used not only by authorities, but also by criminals.
Mobile kill switch
California meets the needs of citizens. California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill called kill switch. Work on the bill had been going on since February.
According to this law, all smartphones purchased in the state of California, users will be able to "put to death" themselves in case of theft. All smartphones will be equipped with special technology that will take care of data security. Once the phone is reported stolen, the thief will not be able to read data from the phone or use it for his own use.
The penalty for manufacturers for not installing this technology is to be $2500 per phone. The law seems to be really needed, because at the beginning of the year iPhone’theft accounted for as much as 67% of all thefts in San Francisco. The bill thus renders stolen smartphones useless, which is expected to cause a drop in thefts in the state.
The same law has also been in effect in Minnesota since May, but because California is by far the more powerful state, the law may be better enforced in that state.
