{"id":271141,"date":"2026-06-12T08:18:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/this-is-going-to-make-a-massive-difference-iphone-snatchers-are-being-foiled-by-our-new-apple-partnership-says-the-uks-met-police-and-another-clever-ios-trick-co\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T08:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:40:11","slug":"this-is-going-to-make-a-massive-difference-iphone-snatchers-are-being-foiled-by-our-new-apple-partnership-says-the-uks-met-police-and-another-clever-ios-trick-co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/this-is-going-to-make-a-massive-difference-iphone-snatchers-are-being-foiled-by-our-new-apple-partnership-says-the-uks-met-police-and-another-clever-ios-trick-co\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018This is going to make a massive difference\u2019: iPhone snatchers are being foiled by our new Apple partnership, says the UK\u2019s Met Police \u2014 and another clever iOS trick could be coming soon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/phones\/iphone\/this-is-going-to-make-a-massive-difference-iphone-snatchers-are-being-foiled-by-our-new-apple-partnership-says-the-uks-met-police-and-another-clever-ios-trick-could-be-coming-soon\">\u2018This is going to make a massive difference\u2019: iPhone snatchers are being foiled by our new Apple partnership, says the UK\u2019s Met Police \u2014 and another clever iOS trick could be coming soon<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/phones\/iphone\/this-is-going-to-make-a-massive-difference-iphone-snatchers-are-being-foiled-by-our-new-apple-partnership-says-the-uks-met-police-and-another-clever-ios-trick-could-be-coming-soon\">https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/phones\/iphone\/this-is-going-to-make-a-massive-difference-iphone-snatchers-are-being-foiled-by-our-new-apple-partnership-says-the-uks-met-police-and-another-clever-ios-trick-could-be-coming-soon<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-06-12 08:18:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.techradar.com\">www.techradar.com<\/a><\/p>\n<ul id=\"elk-51ee7841-4822-48f7-9d65-2a72f0a47128\">\n<li><strong>The Met Police are calling on tech firms to make stolen phones harder to reset<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>They&#8217;re working with Apple on this, and have already seen phone theft in London reduced by 18% compared to the previous year<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Apple enabling Stolen Device Protection by default has likely made a big difference, and there&#8217;s evidence of another anti-theft tool in the works too<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p id=\"elk-a059e302-1f90-4143-8f70-2ac589a43fac\">Smartphones are a major target for thieves. After all, they\u2019re likely the most valuable device most people carry around with them, and their value increases further once thieves export them to countries like China, where devices without local government restrictions are highly sought after. But the UK&#8217;s Met Police is working with Apple to make smartphones significantly less desirable to thieves.<\/p>\n<p>As reported by the BBC, the Met Police are urging tech firms to make stolen phones harder to reset and reuse, and they\u2019re working with Apple to achieve this. Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley emphasized the strategy, stating: &#8220;If stolen phones cannot be reactivated, their value collapses, and so does the incentive to steal them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p id=\"elk-a059e302-1f90-4143-8f70-2ac589a43fac-2\">And progress is supposedly already being made on that front, with Apple being said to have \u201ccracked\u201d the engineering problem that previously allowed thieves to factory reset devices using illicit software.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"inline-flex items-center gap-1.5 text-sm font-article-heading capitalize leading-5 text-white whitespace-nowrap\"><span class=\"jwp-carousel-title-mobile\"\/><span class=\"jwp-carousel-title-desktop\">Latest Videos From<\/span><span class=\"jwp-carousel-brand inline-flex items-center\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/media\/img\/techradar_logo_v2.svg\" alt=\"\" class=\"max-h-12 w-auto\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unclear whether Apple has made changes behind the scenes, but one thing it definitely has done is enable Stolen Device Protection by default in iOS 26.4. With this feature enabled, there\u2019s a delay before things like passwords can be changed when the phone isn\u2019t in a familiar location like a user\u2019s home. The idea is that a user will then have time to get to another device and mark their phone as lost or stolen before the thieves can gain access.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.24%;\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/XxJnmwQ5463awSbNyaBjsi.jpg\" alt=\"An iPhone 16 Pro showing the Stolen Device Protection feature in iOS 26.4 against a blue background.\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/XxJnmwQ5463awSbNyaBjsi-1200-80.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/XxJnmwQ5463awSbNyaBjsi-1024-80.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/XxJnmwQ5463awSbNyaBjsi-970-80.jpg 970w, https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/XxJnmwQ5463awSbNyaBjsi-650-80.jpg 650w, https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/XxJnmwQ5463awSbNyaBjsi-480-80.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/XxJnmwQ5463awSbNyaBjsi-320-80.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1000px) 970px, calc(100vw - 40px)\" loading=\"lazy\" data-new-v2-image=\"true\" data-original-mos=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/XxJnmwQ5463awSbNyaBjsi.jpg\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/XxJnmwQ5463awSbNyaBjsi.jpg\" class=\"rounded-[var(--image--border-radius,0)] inline\"\/>\n<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: Future)<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"a-big-drop-already-3\">A big drop already<\/h2>\n<p id=\"elk-bc5446c8-b22f-40f3-9fc3-db212b1409fd\">As a result, Sir Mark claims that &#8220;the vast majority of phones&#8221; stolen in recent weeks in London have not been factory reset.<\/p>\n<p>        <span class=\"\n            flex\n            after:content-[''] after:flex-1 after:ml-4 after:my-[0.7rem] after:border-t after:border-solid after:border-t-[#ccc]\n            before:content-[''] before:flex-1 before:mr-4 before:my-[0.7rem] before:border-t before:border-solid before:border-t-[#ccc]\n            font-article-heading pb-0 text-[length:var(--article-river-title--font-size,1em)] uppercase sm:text-[length:var(--article-river-title--font-size,0.875em)] font-bold\n        \"><br \/>\n            You may like<br \/>\n        <\/span><br \/>\n   &#8230;<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/phones\/iphone\/this-is-going-to-make-a-massive-difference-iphone-snatchers-are-being-foiled-by-our-new-apple-partnership-says-the-uks-met-police-and-another-clever-ios-trick-could-be-coming-soon\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018This is going to make a massive difference\u2019: iPhone snatchers are being foiled by our&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":271144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/PgxNK96dvjUPywGqLxhvAh-1920-80.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[69,77,124],"class_list":["post-271141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iphone","tag-ios","tag-ios-26","tag-iphone-16"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271145,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271141\/revisions\/271145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}