The theft of smartphones and tablets is one of the most common forms of petty crime. Designed to be portable, valuable, and adaptable to any owner, they present a criminal temptation that is not going away anytime soon. In 2012 alone, an estimated 1.6 million phones were stolen from US consumers, a number which does not even take into account tablet theft.

A solution has been proposed that could potentially stem the tide of mobile device theft, but it is both complicated and contentious. Users are not the only stakeholders in this conversation, and the makers of these devices have actively campaigned against the same solutions that consumer advocates have championed. There are several points of view on this issue:

The Consumer Perspective

Many have argued that a “kill-switch” technology should be integrated into all new mobile devices. This feature would allow the owner of the device to remotely disable it if it is ever stolen, effectively rendering it useless to the thief and making sensitive data inaccessible. That measure, in theory, would cancel out the motive for theft. One expert estimates that the implementation of this technology would save consumers as much as $2.5 billion every year.

Legislation requiring the kill-switch function has been introduced into both houses of Congress, but neither body has taken a vote yet. Consumer rights groups and legislators have increasingly pressured mobile device manufacturers to introduce stronger anti-theft measures, especially as the instances of violence associated with phone theft have risen. A viable solution has been proposed, and there is a growing amount of momentum in favor of it, but kill-switch technology is not yet a standard feature on today’s mobile devices.

The Manufacturer Perspective

Manufacturers of mobile devices have opposed kill-switch technology in the past, citing fears that the feature could be exploited by hackers. The argument goes that if sophisticated hackers found vulnerabilities in the technology, they could shut down the phones of consumers, or even law enforcement officials at will, essentially crippling a communication tool we all now rely on.

Critics believe that this opposition has more to do with corporate profits. With a kill-switch in place, there would be much less incentive, or need, to buy phone insurance that would cover the cost of a stolen phone. The top four mobile companies earned an estimated $7.8 billion in revenue last year from the sale of phone insurance, a number that could decline by as much as 60% with kill-switch technology in place.

The Compromise

In the wake of high profile security breaches like Heartbleed and mounting pressure from legislators, the largest cell phone manufacturers and carriers have agreed to include a kill-switch feature on all phones manufactured after July 2015. The feature will have all the functionalities discussed earlier, but it will not come automatically activated, requiring the user to take the initiative to protect themselves. This has frustrated some critics, but most agree that the presence of the feature is a step in the right direction, and one that manufacturers and consumers alike will come to embrace.

The Recycling Perspective

Another problem with some of the kill switch implementations is that they would make the device unusable after the original owner is done with it. If a user cannot resell an “old” phone when she upgrades to a new one, many electronics recycling advocates fear that these devices will end up in the trash or stashed away in storage instead of being recycled or remarketed. Today, most of the incentive for recycling mobile devices is the cash that the user gets when he turns it over to a certified recycler for resale.

In spite of these new measures, lost, stolen, or disposed of phones and tablets continue to create significant security and electronic waste challenges. Making sure that these devices are either wiped of all data and reused or properly recycled is a paramount concern for the previous user. Learn more about managing the disposition of your corporate mobile devices by reading our white paper “The IT Asset Manager’s Guide to Disposition.”