A number you need to have when your smartphone gets stolen

One of the 900 ecoATM machines across the U.S. is at Westfield S.F. Centre. One of the 900 ecoATM machines across the U.S. is at Westfield S.F. Centre. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close A number you need to have when your smartphone gets stolen 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

Consumer Reports says 1.6 million people had their smartphone stolen in 2012. If you were one of them, the cell phone industry has a message for you.

It was your fault.

That seems to be the attitude. Cell phone providers stubbornly refuse to provide an automatic, built-in kill switch that would make a phone useless if stolen. And a booming second-hand market has sprung up, from stores like Best Buy to ATM kiosks, which allow individuals to turn in a phone for instant cash.

"It is a crime of convenience," says state Sen. Mark Leno. "End the convenience. End the crime."

Leno has authored a bill, supported by San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, which would require all new devices sold in California after Jan. 1, 2015, to have a built-in kill switch. The bill is getting the expected - if cynical - pushback from the phone industry. But there's also a concern about the ease with which phones can be converted to instant cash.

San Francisco's Westfield Centre, for example, has one of the 900 ecoATM machines that can be found across the country. Run the phone through the scanner and in minutes the payout can be as large as $300.

The website for ecoATM says only 1 of every 1,500 phones it collects turns out to be lost or stolen. But some in law enforcement are skeptical.

Matching numbers

"No way," says Tenderloin police Capt. Jason Cherniss. "They missed a word in there, didn't they? Don't they mean 'reported' stolen?"

There's the rub. Despite the considerable safeguards ecoATM has installed - valid driver's license, thumb print and photo of the seller at the time of the transaction, it doesn't mean a thing unless there's a match on a database with the stolen phone's IMEI (International Mobile Station Equipment Identity) number.

Drew Spaventa, director of regulatory affairs for ecoATM, says if you have your IMEI number and it matches one in their system, they will return the phone free of charge within 30 days of turning it in.

But did you even know your phone had such a number? Do you know how to find it?

You don't?

See, it is your fault.

"It goes back to an education issue," Spaventa says. "If people reported them stolen (with the IMEI), that's better data for us. If it is reported stolen, we block that seller."

There are two ways to find the IMEI. On most phones it will appear if you type *#06# on the dial pad. Or you can contact your service provider, who will give it to you. Write it down, and if your phone is stolen, make a police report that includes that number.

After that, what happens is anyone's guess. In the United Kingdom, they have the Immobilise system, which is a register of ownership data. The police also operate the National Mobile Property Register, to cross-check numbers of stolen devices.

Here we have a few Internet sites, but they are not widely used by police departments. More likely is that if the phone is found, it will be by hand-checking the numbers in the police station, which is iffy at best.

A better solution is the kill switch mandated in Leno's bill. It's not a new idea, of course, but that hasn't stopped the phone industry from throwing obstacles in the way.

$30 billion

"It is kind of curious," Leno said. "I got a 'letter of concern' from a whole host of industry folks like AT&T, Sprint, Nokia, Microsoft and Motorola. Suddenly, they are champions of privacy, public safety and security." Mostly, they're concerned about the impact on their profits.

Or, more likely, they're considering the survey by mobile security firm Lookout that estimated that in 2011, Americans paid $30 billion to replace lost and stolen phones.

Leno's bill would have a kill switch built right into the phone. Industry critics say that's unnecessary, because there are already applications that will do that. Unfortunately, consumers aren't installing them.

See, it's your fault.