Force tech giants to make stolen phones ‘unusable bricks,’ Met Police chief Sir Mark Rowley tells Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood

Sir Mark issued an ultimatum in March, calling on telecoms giants to take action to make phones less desirable to steal by making them impossible to reuse. On Thursday, the force revealed it has started sharing data with Apple to more closely track whether stolen handsets get reconnected to a phone network after they are taken. Speaking after an operation that targeted two phone shops in north London on Wednesday, Sir Mark said that the information from Apple will allow officers to build up a global picture of what happens to stolen handsets. He told reporters: “If we share the…