Apple and London’s Metropolitan Police are once again pointing fingers over the continued surge in iPhone thefts across the UK capital.
Despite notable successes, including using Apple’s Find My app to help dismantle a major smartphone theft ring, tensions between the tech giant and law enforcement remain. The Met insists Apple isn’t doing enough, while Apple says policing the streets is not its job.
According to The Telegraph, the Met claims Apple has full access to the National Mobile Phone Register (NMPR), a database of stolen devices, yet fails to use it effectively. The police allege that Apple checks the database daily to verify the network status of trade-in devices but does not investigate whether they are stolen or take further action.
“Apple already has access to the NMPR and uses it every day to check the network status of trade-in devices,” the Met reportedly told the UK government. “But they do not check for theft or take action.”
The situation remains muddled. The same report also suggests Apple doesn’t monitor NMPR for traded-in devices, raising questions about how the system is actually used. What is clear is that London still faces a serious theft problem — more than 80,000 phones were stolen in the city during 2024, though it’s unknown how many were iPhones.
Apple, for its part, maintains that the Met should focus on traditional police work. “We want to ensure the Met Police continues to do traditional policing,” said Gary Davis, Apple’s global head of privacy and law enforcement compliance, in June 2025. “That means sending us requests for stolen devices — and we will respond. We are not seeing that.”
In its defense, Apple points to anti-theft measures like Stolen Device Protection, rolled out to make stolen iPhones significantly harder to resell or reset. The company also says it is considering blocking iPhones at the IMEI level once they’re reported stolen, although it warns such a move could be abused by individuals falsely claiming ownership.
The Met, meanwhile, links the rise in phone theft to broader social issues, citing connections to knife crime, drug trade, and child exploitation gangs.
The standoff between Apple and the Met shows no signs of easing. The dispute echoes earlier tensions from 2023, when London’s mayor publicly urged both Apple and Google to strengthen phone security—only to discover that many of those safeguards were already in place.
