Last week's vote in the state Senate on a bill to require antitheft technology on smartphones fell two votes short thanks to the deep-pocketed cellphone industry and several lawmakers who voted with their political contributors instead of the public interest.
Chief among those politicians was gay state Senator Ricardo Lara (Los Angeles), who was one of the handful of Democrats to vote against the bill. From all accounts, the bill's author, gay state Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) thought he had the necessary 21 votes and it's likely he wasn't counting on Republican support, so the turnaround by Lara and the other Democrats is particularly galling. It was blatant personal interest above the public good. And lest people think smartphone theft isn't a big deal, the numbers show otherwise.
San Francisco District Attorney George Gasc—n, who has taken on smartphone theft as a major issue, along with the New York attorney general, is adamant that the problem is at the root of the majority of robberies in the city. Sometimes these robberies turn violent as the perpetrators wrestle with or physically assault victims to get the phone out of their hands. But it's not just San Francisco. According to Consumer Reports, smartphone theft nearly doubled nationwide from 1.6 million in 2012 to 3.1 million in 2013.
"Wireless customers are being targeted for their devices because the industry has failed to deploy existing safeguards in a manner that will end the surge of street crimes that often turn violent," Gasc—n and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a recent joint news release.
As Gasc—n told us several months ago, technology exists now for a so-called kill switch, but the wireless industry has resisted any broad attempt to make that standard on all smartphones. And why would they? Smartphone theft is practically part of the phone companies' business model. A recent cover story in SF Weekly reported that smartphone theft is a lucrative business, "and not just for the smalltime crooks..." The manufacturer profits because the person whose phone was stolen needs a new one, and of course that usually means entering into a new two-year contract with the wireless company. Then there's the account that's opened by whomever ends up with the stolen phone.
Consumer Reports noted that according to a study recently released by William Duckworth, Ph.D., an associate professor at Creighton University's Heider College of Business, consumers lose about $2.5 billion per year through the combined cost of replacing stolen phones and taking out premium insurance on their new phones.
The wireless industry keeps this vicious cycle going by making donations to lawmakers. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that on the day of the vote last week, more than 20 lobbyists were working the halls outside the chambers, "urging lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to vote no." According to Maplight.com, the telecommunications industry donated $1.35 million to state senators, with about half of that coming from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile.
Leno hopes to bring his bill back for another vote later this month. Those Democrats who weren't with him the first time need to reassess their position and vote for the bill. In addition to Lara they include Democratic state Senators Jim Beall (San Jose) and Norma Torres (Pomona).
Most of us have smartphones and most of us store a lot of personal information on our devices. Replacing one is not only expensive, but can open people up to identity theft. State lawmakers have a chance to actually help people by making the wireless industry do something that it apparently refuses to do on its own – including a kill switch would make smartphones virtually worthless to thieves.