Via: The Washington Post
Police officials hope their newest resource — a voluntary agreement between the Federal Communications Commission and mobile service providers to disallow service to phones that are reported stolen — will help stem the tide. Local and national officials said that they believe the ability to render phones nearly useless will eliminate the profit motive for robbery and theft targeting mobile devices.
Wireless carriers AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint, which serve 90 percent of smartphone users, agreed to implement a database of identification numbers embedded in phones. When a victim reports a stolen phone, its number will be placed in a database and service will be denied the next time someone tries to use the device, officials said.
Wireless carriers said they will launch the database in six months.
