Apple Asked To Add Anti-Robbery Tech To iPod
04.30.07 - 10:55am
Street robberies of iPods climbed 8 percent for the last 13 weeks of 2006 to 26,600 in the UK and Home Secretary John Reid wants something done about this. The iPods are seen as easy targets for muggers and Reid wants Apple and Sony to incorporate technological solutions into their devices that would make them obsolete to robbers.
“If I had one piece of advice it would be to ask the manufacturers to design in features which reduce crimes,” he told the BBC.
Reid wants the music makers to put in a system similar to what cell phone manufactures have put in. Called International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), the system causes cell phones to be deactivated the next time they are logged onto the network if they are stolen.
“That knocks the bottom out of the market because, if people steal these phones, increasingly they recognize that they cannot sell them,” says Reid.
“New technology, lifestyle changes, new commodities and new gadgets mean that the criminals continually move on,” Reid told the BBC’s Sunday AM programmer. “So when we defeat them on mobile phones, they move on to Sat-Navs and then on to iPods.”
Reid is hoping that Apple and Sony will join in a summit to help fight the crime. A spokesman said that during the coming week they’ll be drawing up a list of manufactures who will be the best companies to include for the summit.
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